University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

WILLA  GATHER  COLLECTION 

Gift  of 
MRS.  ROBERTON  E  WILLIAMS 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 


BY 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER 


BOSTON  AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
fitoetfibe  pre^  Cambri&ge 
1912 


COPYRIGHT,    1912,    BY   WILLA   SIBERT   GATHER 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  April  79/2 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

CHAPTER 
I 

LATE  one  brilliant  April  afternoon  Professor 
Lucius  Wilson  stood  at  the  head  of  Chestnut 
Street,  looking  about  him  with  the  pleased  air 
of  a  man  of  taste  who  does  not  very  often  get 
to  Boston.  He  had  lived  there  as  a  student, 
but  for  twenty  years  and  more,  since  he  had 
been  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  a  Western  uni- 
versity, he  had  seldom  come  East  except  to 
take  a  steamer  for  some  foreign  port.  Wilson 
was  standing  quite  still,  contemplating  with  a 
whimsical  smile  the  slanting  street,  with  its  worn 
paving,  its  irregular,  gravely  colored  houses, 
and  the  row  of  naked  trees  on  which  the  thin 
sunlight  was  still  shining.  The  gleam  of  the 
1 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

river  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  made  him  blink  a 
little,  not  so  much  because  it  was  too  bright 
as  because  he  found  it  so  pleasant.  The  few 
passers-by  glanced  at  him  unconcernedly,  and 
even  the  children  who  hurried  along  with  their 
school-bags  under  their  arms  seemed  to  find  it 
perfectly  natural  that  a  tall  brown  gentleman 
should  be  standing  there,  looking  up  through 
his  glasses  at  the  gray  housetops. 

The  sun  sank  rapidly;  the  silvery  light  had 
faded  from  the  bare  boughs  and  the  watery 
twilight  was  setting  in  when  Wilson  at  last 
walked  down  the  hill,  descending  into  cooler  , 
and  cooler  depths  of  grayish  shadow.  His  nos- 
tril, long  unused  to  it,  was  quick  to  detect  the 
smell  of  wood  smoke  in  the  air,  blended  with 
the  odor  of  moist  spring  earth  and  the  saltiness 
that  came  up  the  river  with  the  tide.  He  crossed 
Charles  Street  between  jangling  street  cars  and 
shelving  lumber  drays,  and  after  a  moment  of 
uncertainty  wound  into  Brimmer  Street.  The 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

street  was  quiet,  deserted,  and  hung  with  a  thin 
bluish  haze.  He  had  already  fixed  his  sharp 
eye  upon  the  house  which  he  reasoned  should  be 
his  objective  point,  when  he  noticed  a  woman 
approaching  rapidly  from  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. Always  an  interested  observer  of  women, 
Wilson  would  have  slackened  his  pace  any- 
where to  follow  this  one  with  his  impersonal, 
appreciative  glance.  She  was  a  person  of  dis- 
tinction he  saw  at  once,  and,  moreover,  very 
handsome.  She  was  tall,  carried  her  beautiful 
head  proudly,  and  moved  with  ease  and  cer- 
tainty. One  immediately  took  for  granted  the 
costly  privileges  and  fine  spaces  that  must  lie 
in  the  background  from  which  such  a  figure 
could  emerge  with  this  rapid  and  elegant  gait. 
Wilson  noted  her  dress,  too,  —  for,  in  his  way, 
he  had  an  eye  for  such  things,  —  particularly 
her  brown  furs  and  her  hat.  He  got  a  blurred 
impression  of  her  fine  color,  the  violets  she 
wore,  her  white  gloves,  and,  curiously  enough, 
3 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

of  her  veil,  as  she  turned  up  a  flight  of  steps  in 
front  of  him  and  disappeared. 

Wilson  was  able  to  enjoy  lovely  things  that 
passed  him  on  the  wing  as  completely  and  de- 
liberately as  if  they  had  been  dug-up  marvels, 
long  anticipated,  and  definitely  fixed  at  the  end 
of  a  railway  journey.  For  a  few  pleasurable 
seconds  he  quite  forgot  where  he  was  going,  and 
only  after  the  door  had  closed  behind  her  did 
he  realize  that  the  young  woman  had  entered 
the  house  to  which  he  had  directed  his  trunk 
from  the  South  Station  that  morning.  He 
hesitated  a  moment  before  mounting  the  steps. 
"Can  that,"  he  murmured  in  amazement, — 
"can  that  possibly  have  been  Mrs.  Alexander ?  " 

When  the  servant  admitted  him,  Mrs.  Alex- 
ander was  still  standing  in  the  hallway.  She 
heard  him  give  his  name,  and  came  forward 
holding  out  her  hand. 

"  Is  it  you,  indeed,  Professor  Wilson  ?  I  was 
afraid  that  you  might  get  here  before  I  did.  I 
4 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

was  detained  at  a  concert,  and  Bartley  tele- 
phoned that  he  would  be  late.  Thomas  will  show 
you  your  room.  Had  you  rather  have  your  tea 
brought  to  you  there,  or  will  you  have  it  down 
here  with  me,  while  we  wait  for  Bartley?" 

Wilson  was  pleased  to  find  that  he  had  been 
the  cause  of  her  rapid  walk,  and  with  her  he 
was  even  more  vastly  pleased  than  before.  He 
followed  her  through  the  drawing-room  into  the 
library,  where  the  wide  back  windows  looked 
out  upon  the  garden  and  the  sunset  and  a  fine 
stretch  of  silver-colored  river.  A  harp-shaped 
elm  stood  stripped  against  the  pale  -  colored 
evening  sky,  with  ragged  last  year's  birds'  nests 
in  its  forks,  and  through  the  bare  branches  the 
evening  star  quivered  in  the  misty  air.  The 
long  brown  room  breathed  the  peace  of  a  rich 
and  amply  guarded  quiet.  Tea  was  brought  in 
immediately  and  placed  in  front  of  the  wood 
fire.  Mrs.  Alexander  sat  down  in  a  high-backed 
chair  and  began  to  pour  it,  while  Wilson  sank 
5 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

into  a  low  seat  opposite  her  and  took  his  cup 
with  a  great  sense  of  ease  and  harmony  and 
comfort. 

"You  have  had  a  long  journey,  haven't 
you  ? "  Mrs.  Alexander  asked,  after  showing 
gracious  concern  about  his  tea.  "And  I  am 
so  sorry  Bartley  is  late.  He's  often  tired  when 
he's  late.  He  flatters  himself  that  it  is  a  little 
on  his  account  that  you  have  come  to  this 
Congress  of  Psychologists." 

"It  is,"  Wilson  assented,  selecting  his  muffin 
carefully;  "and  I  hope  he  won't  be  tired  to- 
night. But,  on  my  own  account,  I'm  glad  to 
have  a  few  moments  alone  with  you,  before 
Bartley  comes.  I  was  somehow  afraid  that  my 
knowing  him  so  well  would  not  put  me  in  the 
way  of  getting  to  know  you." 

"That's  very  nice  of  you."   She  nodded  at 
him  above  her  cup  and  smiled,  but  there  was  a 
little  formal  tightness  in  her  tone  which  had  not 
been  there  when  she  greeted  him  in  the  hall. 
6 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

Wilson  leaned  forward.  "Have  I  said  some- 
thing awkward  ?  I  live  very  far  out  of  the 
world,  you  know.  But  I  did  n't  mean  that  you 
would  exactly  fade  dim,  even  if  Bartley  were 
here." 

Mrs.  Alexander  laughed  relentingly.  "Oh, 
I  'm  not  so  vain  !  How  terribly  discerning  you 
are." 

She  looked  straight  at  Wilson,  and  he  felt 
that  this  quick,  frank  glance  brought  about 
an  understanding  between  them. 

He  liked  everything  about  her,  he  told  him- 
self, but  he  particularly  liked  her  eyes;  when 
she  looked  at  one  directly  for  a  moment  they 
were  like  a  glimpse  of  fine  windy  sky  that  may 
bring  all  sorts  of  weather. 

"Since  you  noticed  something,"  Mrs.  Alex- 
ander went  on,  "it  must  have  been  a  flash  of 
the  distrust  I  have  come  to  feel  whenever  I 
meet  any  of  the  people  who  knew  Bartley  when 
he  was  a  boy.  It  is  always  as  if  they  were 
7 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

talking  of  some  one  I  had  never  met.  Really, 
Professor  Wilson,  it  would  seem  that  he  grew 
up  among  the  strangest  people.  They  usually 
say  that  he  has  turned  out  very  well,  or  remark 
that  he  always  was  a  fine  fellow.  I  never  know 
what  reply  to  make." 

Wilson  chuckled  and  leaned  back  in  his  chair, 
shaking  his  left  foot  gently.  "I  expect  the  fact 
is  that  we  none  of  us  knew  him  very  well,  Mrs. 
Alexander.  Though  I  will  say  for  myself  that 
I  was  always  confident  he'd  do  something 
extraordinary." 

Mrs.  Alexander's  shoulders  gave  a  slight 
movement,  suggestive  of  impatience.  "Oh,  I 
should  think  that  might  have  been  a  safe  pre- 
diction. Another  cup,  please  ?" 

"  Yes,  thank  you.  But  predicting,  in  the  case  ' 
of  boys,  is  not  so  easy  as  you  might  imagine, 
Mrs.  Alexander.  Some  get  a  bad  hurt  early 
and  lose  their  courage;  and  some  never  get  a 
fair  wind.  Bartley  "  —  he  dropped  his  chin  on 
8 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

the  back  of  his  long  hand  and  looked  at  her 
admiringly  —  "Hartley  caught  the  wind  early, 
and  it  has  sung  in  his  sails  ever  since." 

Mrs.  Alexander  sat  looking  into  the  fire  with 
intent  preoccupation,  and  Wilson  studied  her 
half-averted  face.  He  liked  the  suggestion  of 
stormy  possibilities  in  the  proud  curve  of  her 
lip  and  nostril.  Without  that,  he  reflected,  she 
would  be  too  cold. 

"I  should  like  to  know  what  he  was  really 
like  when  he  was  a  boy.  I  don't  believe  he 
remembers,"  she  said  suddenly.  "  Won't  you 
smoke,  Mr.  Wilson  ?  " 

Wilson  lit  a  cigarette.  "No,  I  don't  suppose 
he  does.  He  was  never  introspective.  He  was 
simply  the  most  tremendous  response  to  stimuli 
I  have  ever  known.  We  did  n't  know  exactly 
what  to  do  with  him." 

A  servant  came  in  and  noiselessly  removed 
the  tea  -  tray.  Mrs.  Alexander  screened  her 
face  from  the  firelight,  which  was  beginning  to 
9 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

throw  wavering  bright  spots  on  her  dress  and 
hair  as  the  dusk  deepened. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "I  now  and  again  hear 
stories  about  things  that  happened  when  he 
was  in  college." 

"But  that  is  n't  what  you  want."  Wilson 
wrinkled  his  brows  and  looked  at  her  with  the 
smiling  familiarity  that  had  come  about  so 
quickly.  "  What  you  want  is  a  picture  of  him, 
standing  back  there  at  the  other  end  of  twenty 
years.  You  want  to  look  down  through  my 
memory." 

She  dropped  her  hands  in  her  lap.  "  Yes,  yes; 
that's  exactly  what  I  want." 

At  this  moment  they  heard  the  front  door 
shut  with  a  jar,  and  Wilson  laughed  as  Mrs. 
Alexander  rose  quickly.  "There  he  is.  Away 
with  perspective!  No  past,  no  future  for 
Bartley;  just  the  fiery  moment.  The  only  mo- 
ment that  ever  was  or  will  be  in  the  world  !" 

The  door  from  the  hall  opened,  a  voice  called 
10 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

"  Winifred  ? "  hurriedly,  and  a  big  man  came 
through  the  drawing-room  with  a  quick,  heavy 
tread,  bringing  with  him  a  smell  of  cigar  smoke 
and  chill  out-of-doors  air.  When  Alexander 
reached  the  library  door,  he  switched  on  the 
lights  and  stood  six  feet  and  more  in  the  arch- 
way, glowing  with  strength  and  cordiality  and 
rugged,  blond  good  looks.  There  were  other 
bridge-builders  in  the  world,  certainly,  but  it 
was  always  Alexander's  picture  that  the  Sun- 
day Supplement  men  wanted,  because  he  looked 
as  a  tamer  of  rivers  ought  to  look.  Under  his 
tuinbled  sandy  hair  his  head  seemed  as  hard 
and  powerful  as  a  catapult,  and  his  shoulders 
looked  strong  enough  in  themselves  to  support 
a  span  of  any  one  of  his  ten  great  bridges  that 
cut  the  air  above  as  many  rivers. 

After  dinner  Alexander  took  Wilson  up  to  his 
study.    It  was  a  large  room  over  the  library, 
and  looked  out  upon  the  black  river  and  the 
11 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

row  of  white  lights  along  the  Cambridge  Em- 
bankment. The  room  was  not  at  all  what  one 
might  expect  of  an  engineer's  study.  Wilson 
felt  at  once  the  harmony  of  beautiful  things 
that  have  lived  long  together  without  obtru- 
sions of  ugliness  or  change.  It  was  none  of 
Alexander's  doing,  of  course;  those  warm  con- 
sonances of  color  had  been  blending  and  mel- 
lowing before  he  was  born.  But  the  wonder 
was  that  he  was  not  out  of  place  there,  — that 
it  all  seemed  to  glow  like  the  inevitable  back- 
ground for  his  vigor  and  vehemence.  He  sat 
before  the  fire,  his  shoulders  deep  in  the  cush- 
ions of  his  chair,  his  powerful  head  upright,  his 
hair  rumpled  above  his  broad  forehead.  He 
sat  heavily,  a  cigar  in  his  large,  smooth  hand, 
a  flush  of  after-dinner  color  in  his  face,  which' 
wind  and  sun  and  exposure  to  all  sorts  of 
weather  had  left  fair  and  clear-skinned. 

"You  are  off  for  England    on    Saturday, 
Bartley,  Mrs.  Alexander  tells  me." 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

"Yes,  for  a  few  weeks  only.  There's  a  meet- 
ing of  British  engineers,  and  I'm  doing  another 
bridge  in  Canada,  you  know." 

"Oh,  every  one  knows  about  that.  And  it 
was  in  Canada  that  you  met  your  wife,  was  n't 
it?" 

"Yes,  at  Allway.  She  was  visiting  her  great- 
aunt  there.  A  most  remarkable  old  lady.  I 
was  working  with  MacKeller  then,  an  old 
Scotch  engineer  who  had  picked  me  up  in  Lon- 
don and  taken  me  back  to  Quebec  with  him. 
He  had  the  contract  for  the  Allway  Bridge,  but 
before  he  began  work  on  it  he  found  out  that 
he  was  going  to  die,  and  he  advised  the  com- 
mittee to  turn  the  job  over  to  me.  Otherwise 
I'd  never  have  got  anything  good  so  early. 
MacKeller  was  an  old  friend  of  Mrs.  Pember- 
ton,  Winifred's  aunt.  He  had  mentioned  me  to 
her,  so  when  I  went  to  Allway  she  asked  me  to 
come  to  see  her.  She  was  a  wonderful  old  lady." 

"Like  her  niece  ?"  Wilson  queried. 
13 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

Bartley  laughed.  "She  had  been  very  hand- 
some, but  not  in  Winifred's  way.  When  I 
knew  her  she  was  little  and  fragile,  very  pink 
and  white,  with  a  splendid  head  and  a  face  like 
fine  old  lace,  somehow,  —  but  perhaps  I  always 
think  of  that  because  she  wore  a  lace  scarf  on 
her  hair.  She  had  such  a  flavor  of  life  about 
her.  She  had  known  Gordon  and  Livingstone 
and  Beaconsfield  when  she  was  young,  —  every 
one.  She  was  the  first  woman  of  that  sort  I  'd 
ever  known.  You  know  how  it  is  in  the  West, 
—  old  people  are  poked  out  of  the  way.  Aunt 
Eleanor  fascinated  me  as  few  young  women 
have  ever  done.  I  used  to  go  up  from  the  works 
to  have  tea  with  her,  and  sit  talking  to  her  for 
hours.  It  was  very  stimulating,  for  she  could  n't 
tolerate  stupidity." 

"It  must  have  been  then  that  your  luck  be- 
gan, Bartley,"  said  Wilson,  flicking  his  cigar 
ash  with  his  long  finger.  "It's  curious,  watch- 
ing boys,"  he  went  on  reflectively.   "I'm  sure 
14 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

I  did  you  justice  in  the  matter  of  ability.  Yet  I 
always  used  to  feel  that  there  was  a  weak  spot 
where  some  day  strain  would  tell.  Even  after 
you  began  to  climb,  I  stood  down  in  the  crowd 
and  watched  you  with  —  well,  not  with  confi- 
dence. The  more  dazzling  the  front  you  pre- 
sented, the  higher  your  facade  rose,  the  more  I 
expected  to  see  a  big  crack  zigzagging  from  top 
to  bottom,"  —  he  indicated  its  course  in  the 
air  with  his  forefinger,  —  "then  a  crash  and 
clouds  of  dust.  It  was  curious.  I  had  such  a 
clear  picture  of  it.  And  another  curious  thing, 
Bartley,"  Wilson  spoke  with  deliberateness 
and  settled  deeper  into  his  chair,  "is  that  I 
don't  feel  it  any  longer.  I  am  sure  of  you." 

Alexander  laughed.  "Nonsense!  It's  not 
I  you  feel  sure  of;  it's  Winifred.  People  often 
make  that  mistake." 

"No,     I'm    serious,    Alexander.      You've 
changed.  You  have  decided  to  leave  some  birds 
in  the  bushes.  You  used  to  want  them  all." 
15 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Alexander's  chair  creaked.  "I  still  want  a 
good  many,"  he  said  rather  gloomily.  "After 
all,  life  does  n't  offer  a  man  much.  You  work 
like  the  devil  and  think  you  're  getting  on,  and 
suddenly  you  discover  that  you've  only  been 
getting  yourself  tied  up.  A  million  details  drink 
you  dry.  Your  life  keeps  going  for  things 
you  don't  want,  and  all  the  while  you  are  being 
built  alive  into  a  social  structure  you  don't  care 
a  rap  about.  I  sometimes  wonder  what  sort  of 
chap  I  'd  have  been  if  I  had  n't  been  this  sort;  I 
want  to  go  and  live  out  his  potentialities,  too. 
I  have  n't  forgotten  that  there  are  birds  in  the 
bushes." 

Bartley  stopped  and  sat  frowning  into  the 
fire,  his  shoulders  thrust  forward  as  if  he  were 
about  to  spring  at  something.  Wilson  watched 
him,  wondering.  His  old  pupil  always  stimul- 
ated him  at  first,  and  then  vastly  wearied  him. 
The  machinery  was  always  pounding  away  in 
this  man,  and  Wilson  preferred  companions 
16 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

of  a  more  reflective  habit  of  mind.  He  could 
not  help  feeling  that  there  were  unreasoning 
and  unreasonable  activities  going  on  in  Alex- 
ander all  the  while;  that  even  after  dinner, 
when  most  men  achieve  a  decent  imperson- 
ality, Bartley  had  merely  closed  the  door  of 
the  engine-room  and  come  up  for  an  airing. 
The  machinery  itself  was  still  pounding  on. 

Bartley 's  abstraction  and  Wilson's  reflections 
were  cut  short  by  a  rustle  at  the  door,  and 
almost  before  they  could  rise  Mrs.  Alexander 
was  standing  by  the  hearth.  Alexander  brought 
a  chair  for  her,  but  she  shook  her  head. 

"No,  dear,  thank  you.  I  only  came  in  to 
see  whether  you  and  Professor  Wilson  were 
quite  comfortable.  I  am  going  down  to  the 
music-room." 

"Why  not  practice  here?  Wilson  and  I  are 
growing  very  dull.  We  are  tired  of  talk." 

"Yes,  I  beg  you,  Mrs.  Alexander,"  Wilson 
began,  but  he  got  no  further. 
17 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"Why,  certainly,  if  you  won't  find  me  too 
noisy.  I  am  working  on  the  Schumann  'Car- 
nival,' and,  though  I  don't  practice  a  great 
many  hours,  I  am  very  methodical,"  Mrs. 
Alexander  explained,  as  she  crossed  to  an 
upright  piano  that  stood  at  the  back  of  the 
room,  near  the  windows. 

Wilson  followed,  and,  having  seen  her  seated, 
dropped  into  a  chair  behind  her.  She  played 
brilliantly  and  with  great  musical  feeling. 
Wilson  could  not  imagine  her  permitting  her- 
self to  do  anything  badly,  but  he  was  surprised 
at  the  cleanness  of  her  execution.  He  wondered 
how  a  woman  with  so  many  duties  had  man- 
aged to  keep  herself  up  to  a  standard  really 
professional.  It  must  take  a  great  deal  of  time, 
certainly,  and  Bartley  must  take  a  great  deal 
of  time.  Wilson  reflected  that  he  had  never 
before  known  a  woman  who  had  been  able,  for 
any  considerable  while,  to  support  both  a  per- 
sonal and  an  intellectual  passion.  Sitting  be- 
18 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

hind  her,  he  watched  her  with  perplexed  admir- 
ation, shading  his  eyes  with  his  hand.  In  her 
dinner  dress  she  looked  even  younger  than  in 
street  clothes,  and,  for  all  her  composure  and 
self-sufficiency,  she  seemed  to  him  strangely 
alert  and  vibrating,  as  if  in  her,  too,  there  were 
something  never  altogether  at  rest.  He  felt 
that  he  knew  pretty  much  what  she  demanded 
in  people  and  what  she  demanded  from  life, 
and  he  wondered  how  she  squared  Bartley. 
After  ten  years  she  must  know  him;  and  how- 
ever one  took  him,  however  much  one  admired 
him,  one  had  to  admit  that  he  simply  would  n't 
square.  He  was  a  natural  force,  certainly,  but 
beyond  that,  Wilson  felt,  he  was  not  anything 
very  really  or  for  very  long  at  a  time. 

Wilson  glanced  toward  the  fire,  where  Bart- 
ley's  profile  was  still  wreathed  in  cigar  smoke 
that  curled  up  more  and  more  slowly.  His 
shoulders  were  sunk  deep  in  the  cushions  and 
one  hand  hung  large  and  passive  over  the  arm 
19 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

of  his  chair.  He  had  slipped  on  a  purple  velvet 
smoking-coat.  His  wife,  Wilson  surmised,  had 
chosen  it.  She  was  clearly  very  proud  of  his 
good  looks  and  his  fine  color.  But,  with  the 
glow  of  an  immediate  interest  gone  out  of  it, 
the  engineer's  face  looked  tired,  even  a  little 
haggard.  The  three  lines  in  his  forehead, 
directly  above  the  nose,  deepened  as  he  sat 
thinking,  and  his  powerful  head  drooped  for- 
ward heavily.  Although  Alexander  was  only 
forty-three,  Wilson  thought  that  beneath  his 
vigorous  color  he  detected  the  dulling  weari- 
ness of  on-coming  middle  age. 

The  next  afternoon,  at  the  hour  when  the 
river  was  beginning  to  redden  under  the  de- 
clining sun,  Wilson  again  found  himself  facing 
Mrs.  Alexander  at  the  tea-table  in  the  library. 

"Well,"  he  remarked,  when  he  was  bidden 
to  give  an  account  of  himself,  "there  was  a  long 
morning  with  the  psychologists,  luncheon  with 
20 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Bartley  at  his  club,  more  psychologists,  and 
here  I  am.  I  Ve  looked  forward  to  this  hour  all 
day." 

Mrs.  Alexander  smiled  at  him  across  the 
vapor  from  the  kettle.  "And  do  you  remember 
where  we  stopped  yesterday?" 

"Perfectly.  I  was  going  to  show  you  a  pic- 
ture. But  I  doubt  whether  I  have  color  enough 
in  me.  Bartley  makes  me  feel  a  faded  mono- 
chrome. You  can't  get  at  the  young  Bartley  ex- 
cept by  means  of  color."  Wilson  paused  and 
deliberated.  Suddenly  he  broke  out:  "He  was 
n't  a  remarkable  student,  you  know,  though  he 
was  always  strong  in  higher  mathematics.  His 
work  in  my  own  department  was  quite  ordin- 
ary. It  was  as  a  powerfully  equipped  nature 
that  I  found  him  interesting.  That  is  the  most 
interesting  thing  a  teacher  can  find.  It  has  the 
fascination  of  a  scientific  discovery.  We  come 
across  other  pleasing  and  endearing  qualities 
so  much  oftener  than  we  find  force." 
21 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"And,  after  all,"  said  Mrs.  Alexander,  "that 
is  the  thing  we  all  live  upon.  It  is  the  thing 
that  takes  us  forward." 

Wilson  thought  she  spoke  a  little  wistfully. 
"Exactly,"  he  assented  warmly.  "It  builds 
the  bridges  into  the  future,  over  which  the  feet 
of  every  one  of  us  will  go." 

"How  interested  I  am  to  hear  you  put  it 
in  that  way.  The  bridges  into  the  future  — 
I  often  say  that  to  myself.  Bartley's  bridges 
always  seem  to  me  like  that.  Have  you  ever 
seen  his  first  suspension  bridge  in  Canada,  the 
one  he  was  doing  when  I  first  knew  him?  I  , 
hope  you  will  see  it  sometime.  We  were  mar- 
ried as  soon  as  it  was  finished,  and  you  will 
laugh  when  I  tell  you  that  it  always  has  a 
rather  bridal  look  to  me.  It  is  over  the  wildest 
river,  with  mists  and  clouds  always  battling 
about  it,  and  it  is  as  delicate  as  a  cobweb 
hanging  in  the  sky.  It  really  was  a  bridge  into 
the  future.  You  have  only  to  look  at  it  to  feel 
22 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

that  it  meant  the  beginning  of  a  great  career, 
But  I  have  a  photograph  of  it  here."  She 
drew  a  portfolio  from  behind  a  bookcase.  "And 
there,  you  see,  on  the  hill,  is  my  aunt's  house." 

Wilson  took  up  the  photograph.  "Bartley 
was  telling  me  something  about  your  aunt  last 
night.  She  must  have  been  a  delightful  per- 
son." 

Winifred  laughed.  "The  bridge,  you  see,  was 
just  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  the  noise  of  the 
engines  annoyed  her  very  much  at  first.  But 
after  she  met  Bartley  she  pretended  to  like  it, 
and  said  it  was  a  good  thing  to  be  reminded 
that  there  were  things  going  on  in  the  world. 
She  loved  life,  and  Bartley  brought  a  great  deal 
of  it  in  to  her  when  he  came  to  the  house. 
Aunt  Eleanor  was  very  worldly  in  a  frank, 
Early-Victorian  manner.  She  liked  men  of 
action,  and  disliked  young  men  who  were  care- 
ful of  themselves  and  who,  as  she  put  it,  were 
always  trimming  their  wick  as  if  they  were 
23 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

afraid  of  their  oil's  giving  out.  MacKeller, 
Bartley's  first  chief,  was  an  old  friend  of  my 
aunt,  and  he  told  her  that  Bartley  was  a  wild, 
ill-governed  youth,  which  really  pleased  her 
very  much.  I  remember  we  were  sitting  alone 
in  the  dusk  after  Bartley  had  been  there  for 
the  first  time.  I  knew  that  Aunt  Eleanor  had 
found  him  much  to  her  taste,  but  she  had  n't 
said  anything.  Presently  she  came  out,  with 
a  chuckle:  *  MacKeller  found  him  sowing  wild 
oats  in  London,  I  believe.  I  hope  he  did  n't 
stop  him  too  soon.  Life  coquets  with  dashing 
fellows.  The  coming  men  are  always  like  that., 
We  must  have  him  to  dinner,  my  dear.'  And 
we  did.  She  grew  much  fonder  of  Bartley 
than  she  was  of  me.  I  had  been  studying  in 
Vienna,  and  she  thought  that  absurd.  She  was 
interested  in  the  army  and  in  politics,  and  she 
had  a  great  contempt  for  music  and  art  and 
philosophy.  She  used  to  declare  that  the  Prince 
Consort  had  brought  all  that  stuff  over  out  of 
24 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Germany.  She  always  sniffed  when  Bartley 
asked  me  to  play  for  him.  She  considered  that 
a  newfangled  way  of  making  a  match  of  it." 

When  Alexander  came  in  a  few  moments 
later,  he  found  Wilson  and  his  wife  still  con- 
fronting the  photograph.  "Oh,  let  us  get  that 
out  of  the  way,"  he  said,  laughing.  "Winifred, 
Thomas  can  bring  my  trunk  down.  I've  de- 
cided to  go  over  to  New  York  to-morrow  night 
and  take  a  fast  boat.  I  shall  save  two  days." 


CHAPTER 
II 

ON  the  night  of  his  arrival  in  London,  Alexan- 
der went  immediately  to  the  hotel  on  the  Em- 
bankment at  which  he  always  stopped,  and  in 
the  lobby  he  was  accosted  by  an  old  acquaint- 
ance, Maurice  Mainhall,  who  fell  upon  him  with 
effusive  cordiality  and  indicated  a  willingness 
to  dine  with  him.  Bartley  never  dined  alone 
if  he  could  help  it,  and  Mainhall  was  a  good 
gossip  who  always  knew  what  had  been  going 
on  in  town;  especially,  he  knew  everything  that 
was  not  printed  in  the  newspapers.  The  nephew 
of  one  of  the  standard  Victorian  novelists, 
Mainhall  bobbed  about  among  the  various 
literary  cliques  of  London  and  its  outlying  sub- 
urbs, careful  to  lose  touch  with  none  of  them. 
He  had  written  a  number  of  books  himself; 
among  them  a  "History  of  Dancing,"  a  "His- 
26 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

tory  of  Costume,"  a  "Key  to  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets,"  a  study  of  "The  Poetry  of  Ernest 
Dowson,"  etc.  Although  MainhalPs  enthusi- 
asm was  often  tiresome,  and  although  he  was 
often  unable  to  distinguish  between  facts  and 
vivid  figments  of  his  imagination,  his  imper- 
turbable good  nature  overcame  even  the  people 
whom  he  bored  most,  so  that  they  ended  by 
becoming,  in  a  reluctant  manner,  his  friends. 
In  appearance,  Mainhall  was  astonishingly 
like  the  conventional  stage  -  Englishman  of 
American  drama:  tall  and  thin,  with  high, 
hitching  shoulders  and  a  small  head  glistening 
with  closely  brushed  yellow  hair.  He  spoke  with 
an  extreme  Oxford  accent,  and  when  he  was 
talking  well,  his  face  sometimes  wore  the  rapt 
expression  of  a  very  emotional  man  listening 
to  music.  Mainhall  liked  Alexander  because  he 
was  an  engineer.  He  had  preconceived  ideas 
about  everything,  and  his  idea  about  Ameri- 
cans was  that  they  should  be  engineers  or 
27 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

mechanics.    He  hated  them  when  they  pre- 
sumed to  be  anything  else. 

While  they  sat  at  dinner  Mainhall  acquainted 
Bartley  with  the  fortunes  of  his  old  friends  in 
London,  and  as  they  left  the  table  he  proposed 
that  they  should  go  to  see  Hugh  MacConneH's 
new  comedy,  "Bog  Lights." 

"It's  really  quite  the  best  thing  MacCon- 
nelPs  done,"  he  explained  as  they  got  into  a 
hansom.  "It's  tremendously  well  put  on,  too. 
Florence  Merrill  and  Cyril  Henderson.  But 
Hilda  Burgoyne's  the  hit  of  the  piece.  Hugh's 
written  a  delightful  part  for  her,  and  she,'s 
quite  inexpressible.  It's  been  on  only  two 
weeks,  and  I  've  been  half  a  dozen  times  already. 
I  happen  to  have  MacConnell's  box  for  to- 
night or  there 'd  be  no  chance  of  our  getting 
places.  There's  everything  in  seeing  Hilda 
while  she's  fresh  in  a  part.  She's  apt  to  grow 
a  bit  stale  after  a  time.  The  ones  who  have 
any  imagination  do." 

28 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"Hilda  Burgoyne!"  Alexander  exclaimed 
mildly.  "  Why,  I  have  n't  heard  of  her  for  — 
years." 

Mainhall  laughed.  "Then  you  can't  have 
heard  much  at  all,  my  dear  Alexander.  It's 
only  lately,  since  MacConnell  and  his  set  have 
got  hold  of  her,  that  she 's  come  up.  Myself,  I 
always  knew  she  had  it  in  her.  If  we  had  one 
real  critic  in  London  —  but  what  can  one  ex- 
pect? Do  you  know,  Alexander,"  —  Mainhall 
looked  with  perplexity  up  into  the  top  of  the 
hansom  and  rubbed  his  pink  cheek  with  his 
gloved  finger,  —  "do  you  know,  I  sometimes 
think  of  taking  to  criticism  seriously  myself. 
In  a  way,  it  would  be  a  sacrifice;  but,  dear  me, 
we  do  need  some  one." 

Just  then  they  drove  up  to  the  Duke  of 
York's,  so  Alexander  did  not  commit  himself, 
but  followed  Mainhall  into  the  theatre.  When 
they  entered  the  stage-box  on  the  left  the 
first  act  was  well  under  way,  the  scene  being 
29 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

the  interior  of  a  cabin  in  the  south  of  Ire- 
land. As  they  sat  down,  a  burst  of  applause 
drew  Alexander's  attention  to  the  stage.  Miss 
Burgoyne  and  her  donkey  were  thrusting  their 
heads  in  at  the  half  door.  "After  all,"  he 
reflected,  "there's  small  probability  of  her 
recognizing  me.  She  doubtless  has  n't  thought 
of  me  for  years."  He  felt  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
house  at  once,  and  in  a  few  moments  he  was 
caught  up  by  the  current  of  MacConnell's  irre- 
sistible comedy.  The  audience  had  come  fore- 
warned, evidently,  and  whenever  the  ragged 
slip  of  a  donkey-girl  ran  upon  the  stage  there 
was  a  deep  murmur  of  approbation,  every  one 
smiled  and  glowed,  and  Mainhall  hitched  his 
heavy  chair  a  little  nearer  the  brass  railing. 

"You  see,"  he  murmured  in  Alexander's  ear,  • 
as  the  curtain  fell  on  the  first  act,  "one  almost 
never  sees  a  part  like  that  done  without  smart- 
ness or  mawkishness.  Of  course,  Hilda  is  Irish, 
—  the  Burgoynes  have  been  stage  people  for 
30 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

generations,  —  and  she  has  the  Irish  voice.  It 's 
delightful  to  hear  it  in  a  London  theatre.  That 
laugh,  now,  when  she  doubles  over  at  the  hips 
—  who  ever  heard  it  out  of  Galway?  She  saves 
her  hand,  too.  She 's  at  her  best  in  the  second 
act.  She's  really  MacConnell's  poetic  motif, 
you  see ;  makes  the  whole  thing  a  fairy 
tale." 

The  second  act  opened  before  Philly  Doyle's 
underground  still,  with  Peggy  and  her  battered 
donkey  come  in  to  smuggle  a  load  of  potheen 
across  the  bog,  and  to  bring  Philly  word  of 
what  was  doing  in  the  world  without,  and  of 
what  was  happening  along  the  roadsides  and 
ditches  with  the  first  gleam  of  fine  weather. 
Alexander,  annoyed  by  MainhalFs  sighs  and 
exclamations,  watched  her  with  keen,  half- 
skeptical  interest.  As  Mainhall  had  said,  she 
was  the  second  act;  the  plot  and  feeling  alike 
depended  upon  her  lightness  of  foot,  her  light- 
ness of  touch,  upon  the  shrewdness  and  deft 
31 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

fancifulness  that  played  alternately,  and  some- 
times together,  in  her  mirthful  brown  eyes. 
When  she  began  to  dance,  by  way  of  showing 
the  gossoons  what  she  had  seen  in  the  fairy 
rings  at  night,  the  house  broke  into  a  prolonged 
uproar.  After  her  dance  she  withdrew  from  the 
dialogue  and  retreated  to  the  ditch  wall  back  of 
Philly's  burrow,  where  she  sat  singing  "The 
Rising  of  the  Moon"  and  making  a  wreath  of 
primroses  for  her  donkey. 

When  the  act  was  over  Alexander  and  Main- 
hall  strolled  out  into  the  corridor.  They  met 
a  good  many  acquaintances;  Mainhall,  indeed, 
knew  almost  every  one,  and  he  babbled  on 
incontinently,  screwing  his  small  head  about 
over  his  high  collar.  Presently  he  hailed  a  tall, 
bearded  man,  grim-browed  and  rather  bat- 
tered-looking, who  had  his  opera  cloak  on  his 
arm  and  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and  who  seemed 
to  be  on  the  point  of  leaving  the  theatre. 

"MacConnell,  let  me  introduce  Mr.  Bartley 
32 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Alexander.  I  say !  It 's  going  famously  to-night, 
Mac.  And  what  an  audience!  You'll  never 
do  anything  like  this  again,  mark  me.  A  man 
writes  to  the  top  of  his  bent  only  once." 

The  playwright  gave  Mainhall  a  curious  look 
out  of  his  deep-set  faded  eyes  and  made  a  wry 
face.  "And  have  I  done  anything  so  fool  as 
that,  now?  "  he  asked. 

"That  's  what  I  was  saying,"  Mainhall 
lounged  a  little  nearer  and  dropped  into  a  tone 
even  more  conspicuously  confidential.  "And 
you'll  never  bring  Hilda  out  like  this  again. 
Dear  me,  Mac,  the  girl  could  n't  possibly  be 
better,  you  know." 

MacConnell  grunted.  "She  '11  do  well  enough 
if  she  keeps  her  pace  and  does  n't  go  off  on  us 
in  the  middle  of  the  season,  as  she 's  more  than 
like  to  do." 

He  nodded  curtly  and  made  for  the  door, 
dodging  acquaintances  as  he  went. 

"Poor    old    Hugh,"    Mainhall    murmured. 
33 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"He's  hit  terribly  hard.  He's  been  wanting 
to  marry  Hilda  these  three  years  and  more. 
She  does  n't  take  up  with  anybody,  you  know. 
Irene  Burgoyne,  one  of  her  family,  told  me  in 
confidence  that  there  was  a  romance  somewhere 
back  in  the  beginning.  One  of  your  country- 
men, Alexander,  by  the  way;  an  American  stu- 
dent whom  she  met  in  Paris,  I  believe.  I  dare 
say  it's  quite  true  that  there's  never  been  any 
one  else."  Mainhall  vouched  for  her  constancy 
with  a  loftiness  that  made  Alexander  smile,  even 
while  a  kind  of  rapid  excitement  was  tingling 
through  him.  Blinking  up  at  the  lights,  Main- 
hall  added  in  his  luxurious,  worldly  way:  "She's 
an  elegant  little  person,  and  quite  capable  of 
an  extravagant  bit  of  sentiment  like  that. 
Here  comes  Sir  Harry  Towne.  He's  another 
who 's  awfully  keen  about  her.  Let  me  introduce 
you.  Sir  Harry  Towne,  Mr.  Bartley  Alexander, 
the  American  engineer." 
Sir  Harry  Towne  bowed  and  said  that 
34 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

he  had  met  Mr.  Alexander  and  his  wife  in 
Tokyo. 

Mainhall  cut  in  impatiently. 

"I  say,  Sir  Harry,  the  little  girl's  going 
famously  to-night,  is  n't  she?" 

Sir  Harry  wrinkled  his  brows  judiciously. 
"Do  you  know,  I  thought  the  dance  a  bit 
conscious  to-night,  for  the  first  time.  The  fact 
is,  she 's  feeling  rather  seedy,  poor  child.  West- 
mere  and  I  were  back  after  the  first  act,  and  we 
thought  she  seemed  quite  uncertain  of  herself. 
A  little  attack  of  nerves,  possibly." 

He  bowed  as  the  warning  bell  rang,  and  Main- 
hall  whispered:  "You  know  Lord  Westmere,  of 
course, — the  stooped  man  with  the  long  gray 
mustache,  talking  to  Lady  Dowle.  Lady  West- 
mere  is  very  fond  of  Hilda." 

When  they  reached  their  box  the  house  was 

darkened  and  the  orchestra  was  playing  "The 

Cloak  of  Old  Gaul."  In  a  moment  Peggy  was 

on  the  stage  again,  and  Alexander  applauded 

35 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

vigorously  with  the  rest.  He  even  leaned  for- 
ward over  the  rail  a  little.  For  some  reason  he 
felt  pleased  and  flattered  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  audience.  In  the  half-light  he  looked  about 
at  the  stalls  and  boxes  and  smiled  a  little  con- 
sciously, recalling  with  amusement  Sir  Harry's 
judicial  frown.  He  was  beginning  to  feel  a  keen 
interest  in  the  slender,  barefoot  donkey-girl 
who  slipped  in  and  out  of  the  play,  singing,  like 
some  one  winding  through  a  hilly  field.  He 
leaned  forward  and  beamed  felicitations  as 
warmly  as  Mainhall  himself  when,  at  the  end 
of  the  play,  she  came  again  and  again  before  the 
curtain,  panting  a  little  and  flushed,  her  eyes 
dancing  and  her  eager,  nervous  little  mouth 
tremulous  with  excitement. 

When  Alexander  returned  to  his  hotel  —  he 
shook  Mainhall  at  the  door  of  the  theatre  — 
he  had  some  supper  brought  up  to  his  room, 
and  it  was  late  before  he  went  to  bed.  He  had 
not  thought  of  Hilda  Burgoyne  for  years;  in- 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

deed,  lie  had  almost  forgotten  her.  He  had  last 
written  to  her  from  Canada,  after  he  first  met 
Winifred,  telling  her  that  everything  was 
changed  with  him  —  that  he  had  met  a  woman 
whom  he  would  marry  if  he  could;  if  he  could 
not,  then  all  the  more  was  everything  changed 
for  him.  Hilda  had  never  replied  to  his  letter. 
He  felt  guilty  and  unhappy  about  her  for  a 
time,  but  after  Winifred  promised  to  marry  him 
he  really  forgot  Hilda  altogether.  When  he 
wrote  her  that  everything  was  changed  for  him, 
he  was  telling  the  truth.  After  he  met  Winifred 
Pemberton  he  seemed  to  himself  like  a  different 
man.  One  night  when  he  and  Winifred  were 
sitting  together  on  the  bridge,  he  told  her  that 
things  had  happened  while  he  was  studying 
abroad  that  he  was  sorry  for,  —  one  thing  in 
particular,  —  and  he  asked  her  whether  she 
thought  she  ought  to  know  about  them.  She 
considered  a  moment  and  then  said:  "No,  I 
think  not,  though  I  am  glad  you  ask  me.  You 
37 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

see,  one  can't  be  jealous  about  things  in  general; 
but  about  particular,  definite,  personal  things," 
—  here  she  had  thrown  her  hands  up  to  his 
shoulders  with  a  quick,  impulsive  gesture  — 
"oh,  about  those  I  should  be  very  jealous.  I 
should  torture  myself  —  I  could  n't  help  it." 
After  that  it  was  easy  to  forget,  actually  to 
forget.  He  wondered  to-night,  as  he  poured 
his  wine,  how  many  times  he  had  thought  of 
Hilda  in  the  last  ten  years.  He  had  been  in 
London  more  or  less,  but  he  had  never  hap- 
pened to  hear  of  her.  "All  the  same,"  he  lifted 
his  glass,  "here's  to  you,  little  Hilda.  You've 
made  things  come  your  way,  and  I  never 
thought  you  'd  do  it. 

"Of  course,"  he  reflected,  "she  always  had 
that  combination  of  something  homely  and 
sensible,  and  something  utterly  wild  and  daft. 
But  I  never  thought  she'd  do  anything.  She 
had  n't  much  ambition  then,  and  she  was  too 
fond  of  trifles.  She  must  care  about  the  theatre 
38 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

a  great  deal  more  than  she  used  to.  Perhaps 
she  has  me  to  thank  for  something,  after  all. 
Sometimes  a  little  jolt  like  that  does  one  good. 
She  was  a  daft,  generous  little  thing.  I'm  glad 
she's  held  her  own  since.  After  all,  we  were 
awfully  young.  It  was  youth  and  poverty 
and  proximity,  and  everything  was  young  and 
kindly.  I  should  n't  wonder  if  she  could  laugh 
about  it  with  me  now.  I  should  n't  wonder  — 
But  they  've  probably  spoiled  her,  so  that  she  'd 
be  tiresome  if  one  met  her  again." 
Bartley  smiled  and  yawned  and  went  to  bed. 


CHAPTER 
III 

THE  next  evening  Alexander  dined  alone  at  a 
club,  and  at  about  nine  o'clock  he  dropped  in 
at  the  Duke  of  York's.  The  house  was  sold 
out  and  he  stood  through  the  second  act.  When 
he  returned  to  his  hotel  he  examined  the  new 
directory,  and  found  Miss  Burgoyne's  address 
still  given  as  off  Bedford  Square,  though  at  a 
new  number.  He  remembered  that,  in  so  far 
as  she  had  been  brought  up  at  all,  she  had  been 
brought  up  in  Bloomsbury.  Her  father  and 
mother  played  in  the  provinces  most  of  the 
year,  and  she  was  left  a  great  deal  in  the  care  of 
an  old  aunt  who  was  crippled  by  rheumatism 
and  who  had  had  to  leave  the  stage  altogether. 
In  the  days  when  Alexander  knew  her,  Hilda 
always  managed  to  have  a  lodging  of  some  sort 
about  Bedford  Square,  because  she  clung  tena- 
40 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

ciously  to  such  scraps  and  shreds  of  memories 
as  were  connected  with  it.  The  mummy  room 
of  the  British  Museum  had  been  one  of  the  chief 
delights  of  her  childhood.  That  forbidding  pile 
was  the  goal  of  her  truant  fancy,  and  she  was 
sometimes  taken  there  for  a  treat,  as  other  chil- 
dren are  taken  to  the  theatre.  It  was  long  since 
Alexander  had  thought  of  any  of  these  things, 
but  now  they  came  back  to  him  quite  fresh,  and 
had  a  significance  they  did  not  have  when  they 
were  first  told  him  in  his  restless  twenties.  So 
she  was  still  in  the  old  neighborhood,  near 
Bedford  Square.  The  new  number  probably 
meant  increased  prosperity.  He  hoped  so. 
He  would  like  to  know  that  she  was  snugly 
settled.  He  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was  a 
quarter  past  ten;  she  would  not  be  home  for  a 
good  two  hours  yet,  and  he  might  as  well  walk 
over  and  have  a  look  at  the  place.  He  remem- 
bered the  shortest  way. 
It  was  a  warm,  smoky  evening,  and  there 
41 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

was  a  grimy  moon.  He  went  through  Co  vent 
Garden  to  Oxford  Street,  and  as  he  turned  into 
Museum  Street  he  walked  more  slowly,  smiling 
at  his  own  nervousness  as  he  approached  the 
sullen  gray  mass  at  the  end.  He  had  not  been 
inside  the  Museum,  actually,  since  he  and  Hilda 
used  to  meet  there;  sometimes  to  set  out  for 
gay  adventures  at  Twickenham  or  Richmond, 
sometimes  to  linger  about  the  place  for  a  while 
and  to  ponder  by  Lord  Elgin's  marbles  upon 
the  lastingness  of  some  things,  or,  in  the  mummy 
room,  upon  the  awful  brevity  of  others.  Since 
then  Bartley  had  always  thought  of  the  British 
Museum  as  the  ultimate  repository  of  mortality, 
where  all  the  dead  things  in  the  world  were 
assembled  to  make  one's  hour  of  youth  the 
more  precious.  One  trembled  lest  before  he  got 
out  it  might  somehow  escape  him,  lest  he  might 
drop  the  glass  from  over-eagerness  and  see  it 
shivered  on  the  stone  floor  at  his  feet.  How 
one  hid  his  youth  under  his  coat  and  hugged  it ! 
42 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

And  how  good  it  was  to  turn  one's  back  upon 
all  that  vaulted  cold,  to  take  Hilda's  arm  and 
hurry  out  of  the  great  door  and  down  the 
steps  into  the  sunlight  among  the  pigeons  — 
to  know  that  the  warm  and  vital  thing  within 
him  was  still  there  and  had  not  been  snatched 
away  to  flush  Caesar's  lean  cheek  or  to  feed  the 
veins  of  some  bearded  Assyrian  king.  They  in 
their  day  had  carried  the  flaming  liquor,  but 
to-day  was  his !  So  the  song  used  to  run  in  his 
head  those  summer  mornings  a  dozen  years  ago. 
Alexander  walked  by  the  place  very  quietly,  as 
if  he  were  afraid  of  waking  some  one. 

He  crossed  Bedford  Square  and  found  the 
number  he  was  looking  for.  The  house,  a  com- 
fortable, well-kept  place  enough,  was  dark 
except  for  the  four  front  windows  on  the  second 
floor,  where  a  low,  even  light  was  burning  be- 
hind the  white  muslin  sash  curtains.  Outside 
there  were  window  boxes,  painted  white  and 
full  of  flowers.  Bartley  was  making  a  third 
43 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

round  of  the  Square  when  he  heard  the  far- 
flung  hoof -beats  of  a  hansom-cab  horse,  driven 
rapidly.  He  looked  at  his  watch,  and  was  as- 
tonished to  find  that  it  was  a  few  minutes  after 
twelve.  He  turned  and  walked  back  along  the 
iron  railing  as  the  cab  came  up  to  Hilda's  num- 
ber and  stopped.  The  hansom  must  have  been 
one  that  she  employed  regularly,  for  she  did  not 
stop  to  pay  the  driver.  She  stepped  out  quickly 
and  lightly.  He  heard  her  cheerful  "Good- 
night, cabby,"  as  she  ran  up  the  steps  and 
opened  the  door  with  a  latchkey.  In  a  kw 
moments  the  lights  flared  up  brightly  behind 
the  white  curtains,  and  as  he  walked  away  he 
heard  a  window  raised.  But  he  had  gone  too 
far  to  look  up  without  turning  round.  He  went ' 
back  to  his  hotel,  feeling  that  he  had  had  a  good 
evening,  and  he  slept  well. 

For  the  next  few  days  Alexander  was  very 
busy.  He  took  a  desk  in  the  office  of  a  Scotch 
engineering  firm  on  Henrietta  Street,  and  was 
44 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

at  work  almost  constantly.  He  avoided  the 
clubs  and  usually  dined  alone  at  his  hotel. 
One  afternoon,  after  he  had  tea,  he  started 
for  a  walk  down  the  Embankment  toward 
Westminster,  intending  to  end  his  stroll  at 
Bedford  Square  and  to  ask  whether  Miss  Bur- 
goyne  would  let  him  take  her  to  the  theatre. 
But  he  did  not  go  so  far.  When  he  reached  the 
Abbey,  he  turned  back  and  crossed  Westminster 
Bridge  and  sat  down  to  watch  the  trails  of 
smoke  behind  the  Houses  of  Parliament  catch 
fire  with  the  sunset.  The  slender  towers  were 
washed  by  a  rain  of  golden  light  and  licked  by 
little  flickering  flames;  Somerset  House  and  the 
bleached  gray  pinnacles  about  Whitehall  were 
floated  in  a  luminous  haze.  The  yellow  light 
poured  through  the  trees  and  the  leaves  seemed 
to  burn  with  soft  fires.  There  was  a  smell  of 
acacias  in  the  air  everywhere,  and  the  labur- 
nums were  dripping  gold  over  the  walls  of  the 
gardens.  It  was  a  sweet,  lonely  kind  of  sum- 
45 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

mer  evening.  Remembering  Hilda  as  she  used 
to  be,  was  doubtless  more  satisfactory  than 
seeing  her  as  she  must  be  now — and,  after  all, 
Alexander  asked  himself,  what  was  it  but  his 
own  young  years  that  he  was  remembering  ? 

He  crossed  back  to  Westminster,  went  up  to 
the  Temple,  and  sat  down  to  smoke  in  the 
Middle  Temple  gardens,  listening  to  the  thin 
voice  of  the  fountain  and  smelling  the  spice  of 
the  sycamores  that  came  out  heavily  in  the 
damp  evening  air.  He  thought,  as  he  sat  there, 
about  a  great  many  things:  about  his  own 
youth  and  Hilda's;  above  all,  he  thought  of 
how  glorious  it  had  been,  and  how  quickly  it 
had  passed;  and,  when  it  had  passed,  how  little 
worth  while  anything  was.  None  of  the  things ' 
he  had  gained  in  the  least  compensated.  In  the 
last  six  years  his  reputation  had  become,  as  the 
saying  is,  popular.  Four  years  ago  he  had  been 
called  to  Japan  to  deliver,  at  the  Emperor's  re- 
quest, a  course  of  lectures  at  the  Imperial  Uni- 
46 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

versity,  and  had  instituted  reforms  throughout 
the  islands,  not  only  in  the  practice  of  bridge- 
building  but  in  drainage  and  road-making. 
On  his  return  he  had  undertaken  the  bridge  at 
Moorlock,  in  Canada,  the  most  important  piece 
of  bridge-building  going  on  in  the  world,  —  a 
test,  indeed,  of  how  far  the  latest  practice  in 
bridge  structure  could  be  carried.  It  was  a 
spectacular  undertaking  by  reason  of  its  very 
size,  and  Bartley  realized  that,  whatever  else 
he  might  do,  he  would  probably  always  be 
known  as  the  engineer  who  designed  the  great 
Moorlock  Bridge,  the  longest  cantilever  in 
existence.  Yet  it  was  to  him  the  least  satis- 
factory thing  he  had  ever  done.  He  was 
cramped  in  every  way  by  a  niggardly  commis- 
sion, and  was  using  lighter  structural  material 
than  he  thought  proper.  He  had  vexations 
enough,  too,  with  his  work  at  home.  He  had 
several  bridges  under  way  in  the  United  States, 
and  they  were  always  being  held  up  by  strikes 
47 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

and  delays  resulting  from  a  general  industrial 
unrest. 

Though  Alexander  often  told  himself  he  had 
never  put  more  into  his  work  than  he  had  done 
in  the  last  few  years,  he  had  to  admit  that  he 
had  never  got  so  little  out  of  it.  He  was  paying 
for  success,  too,  in  the  demands  made  on  his 
time  by  boards  of  civic  enterprise  and  commit- 
tees of  public  welfare.  The  obligations  imposed 
by  his  wife's  fortune  and  position  were  some- 
times distracting  to  a  man  who  followed  his 
profession,  and  he  was  expected  to  be  interested 
in  a  great  many  worthy  endeavors  on  her 
account  as  well  as  on  his  own.  His  existence 
was  becoming  a  network  of  great  and  little 
details.  He  had  expected  that  success  would 
bring  him  freedom  and  power;  but  it  had 
brought  only  power  that  was  in  itself  another 
kind  of  restraint.  He  had  always  meant  to 
keep  his  personal  liberty  at  all  costs,  as  old  Mac- 
Keller,  his  first  chief,  had  done,  and  not,  like 
48 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

so  many  American  engineers,  to  become  a  part 
of  a  professional  movement,  a  cautious  board 
member,  a  Nestor  de  pontibus.  He  happened 
to  be  engaged  in  work  of  public  utility,  but  he 
was  not  willing  to  become  what  is  called  a 
public  man.  He  found  himself  living  exactly 
the  kind  of  life  he  had  determined  to  escape. 
What,  he  asked  himself,  did  he  want  with  these 
genial  honors  and  substantial  comforts?  Hard- 
ships and  difficulties  he  had  carried  lightly; 
overwork  had  not  exhausted  him;  but  this  dead 
calm  of  middle  life  which  confronted  him,  — 
of  that  he  was  afraid.  He  was  not  ready  for 
it.  It  was  like  being  buried  alive.  In  his  youth 
he  would  not  have  believed  such  a  thing  possi- 
ble. The  one  thing  he  had  really  wanted  all 
his  life  was  to  be  free;  and  there  was  still  some- 
thing unconquered  in  him,  something  besides 
the  strong  work-horse  that  his  profession  had 
made  of  him.  He  felt  rich  to-night  in  the  pos- 
session of  that  unstultified  survival;  in  the 
49 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

light  of  his  experience,  it  was  more  precious 
than  honors  or  achievement.  In  all  those  busy, 
successful  years  there  had  been  nothing  so  good 
as  this  hour  of  wild  light-heartedness.  This  feel- 
ing was  the  only  happiness  that  was  real  to  him, 
and  such  hours  were  the  only  ones  in  which  he 
could  feel  his  own  continuous  identity — feel  the 
boy  he  had  been  in  the  rough  days  of  the  old 
West,  feel  the  youth  who  had  worked  his  way 
across  the  ocean  on  a  cattle-ship  and  gone  to 
study  in  Paris  without  a  dollar  in  his  pocket. 
The  man  who  sat  in  his  offices  in  Boston  was 
only  a  powerful  machine.  Under  the  activities  of 
that  machine  the  person  who,  at  such  moments 
as  this,  he  felt  to  be  himself,  was  fading  and 
dying.  He  remembered  how,  when  he  was  a . 
little  boy  and  his  father  called  him  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  used  to  leap  from  his  bed  into  the  full 
consciousness  of  himself.  That  consciousness 
was  Life  itself.  Whatever  took  its  place,  action, 
reflection,  the  power  of  concentrated  thought, 
50 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

were  only  functions  of  a  mechanism  useful  to 
society;  things  that  could  be  bought  in  the 
market.  There  was  only  one  thing  that  had  an 
absolute  value  for  each  individual,  and  it  was 
just  that  original  impulse,  that  internal  heat, 
that  feeling  of  one's  self  in  one's  own  breast. 

When  Alexander  walked  back  to  his  hotel, 
the  red  and  green  lights  were  blinking  along  the 
docks  on  the  farther  shore,  and  the  soft  white 
stars  were  shining  in  the  wide  sky  above  the 
river. 

The  next  night,  and  the  next,  Alexander  re- 
peated this  same  foolish  performance.  It  was 
always  Miss  Burgoyne  whom  he  started  out  to 
find,  and  he  got  no  farther  than  the  Temple 
gardens  and  the  Embankment.  It  was  a  pleas- 
ant kind  of  loneliness.  To  a  man  who  was  so 
little  given  to  reflection,  whose  dreams  always 
took  the  form  of  definite  ideas,  reaching  into 
the  future,  there  was  a  seductive  excitement  in 
renewing  old  experiences  in  imagination.  He 
51 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

started  out  upon  these  walks  half  guiltily,  with 
a  curious  longing  and  expectancy  which  were 
wholly  gratified  by  solitude.  Solitude,  but  not 
solitariness;  for  he  walked  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  a  shadowy  companion  —  not  little  Hilda 
Burgoyne,  by  any  means,  but  some  one  vastly 
dearer  to  him  than  she  had  ever  been  —  his 
own  young  self,  the  youth  who  had  waited  for 
him  upon  the  steps  of  the  British  Museum  that 
night,  and  who,  though  he  had  tried  to  pass 
so  quietly,  had  known  him  and  come  down  and 
linked  an  arm  in  his. 

It  was  not  until  long  afterward  that  Alex- 
ander learned  that  for  him  this  youth  was  the 
most  dangerous  of  companions. 

One  Sunday  evening,  at  Lady  Walford's, 
Alexander  did  at  last  meet  Hilda  Burgoyne. 
Mainhall  had  told  him  that  she  would  probably 
be  there.  He  looked  about  for  her  rather 
nervously,  and  finally  found  her  at  the  farther 
52 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

end  of  the  large  drawing-room,  the  centre  of  a 
circle  of  men,  young  and  old.  She  was  appar- 
ently telling  them  a  story.  They  were  all  laugh- 
ing and  bending  toward  her.  When  she  saw 
Alexander,  she  rose  quickly  and  put  out  her 
hand.  The  other  men  drew  back  a  little  to  let 
him  approach. 

"Mr.  Alexander!  I  am  delighted.  Have  you 
been  in  London  long?" 

Bartley  bowed,  somewhat  laboriously,  over 
her  hand.  "Long  enough  to  have  seen  you 
more  than  once.  How  fine  it  all  is!" 

She  laughed  as  if  she  were  pleased.  "I'm 
glad  you  think  so.  I  like  it.  Won't  you  join 
us  here?" 

"Miss  Burgoyne  was  just  telling  us  about  a 
donkey-boy  she  had  in  Galway  last  summer," 
Sir  Harry  Towne  explained  as  the  circle  closed 
up  again.  Lord  Westmere  stroked  his  long 
white  mustache  with  his  bloodless  hand  and 
looked  at  Alexander  blankly.  Hilda  was  a  good 
53 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

story-teller.  She  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  her 
chair,  as  if  she  had  alighted  there  for  a  moment 
only.  Her  primrose  satin  gown  seemed  like  a 
soft  sheath  for  her  slender,  supple  figure,  and 
its  delicate  color  suited  her  white  Irish  skin  and 
brown  hair.  Whatever  she  wore,  people  felt  the 
charm  of  her  active,  girlish  body  with  its  slender 
hips  and  quick,  eager  shoulders.  Alexander 
heard  little  of  the  story,  but  he  watched  Hilda 
intently.  She  must  certainly,  he  reflected,  be 
thirty,  and  he  was  honestly  delighted  to  see 
that  the  years  had  treated  her  so  indulgently. 
If  her  face  had  changed  at  all,  it  was  in  a  slight 
hardening  of  the  mouth  —  still  eager  enough  to 
be  very  disconcerting  at  times,  he  felt  —  and  in 
an  added  air  of  self-possession  and  self-reliance. 
She  carried  her  head,  too,  a  little  more  reso- 
lutely. 

When  the  story  was  finished,  Miss  Burgoyne 
turned  pointedly  to  Alexander,  and  the  other 
men  drifted  away. 

54 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"I  thought  I  saw  you  in  MacConnell's  box 
with  Mainhall  one  evening,  but  I  supposed  you 
had  left  town  before  this." 

She  looked  at  him  frankly  and  cordially,  as 
if  he  were  indeed  merely  an  old  friend  whom 
she  was  glad  to  meet  again. 

"No,  I've  been  mooning  about  here." 

Hilda  laughed  gayly.  "Mooning!  I  see  you 
mooning!  You  must  be  the  busiest  man  in  the 
world.  Time  and  success  have  done  well  by 
you,  you  know.  You're  handsomer  than  ever 
and  you've  gained  a  grand  manner." 

Alexander  blushed  and  bowed.  "Time  and 
success  have  been  good  friends  to  both  of  us. 
Are  n't  you  tremendously  pleased  with  your- 
self?" 

She  laughed  again  and  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders. "Oh,  so-so.  But  I  want  to  hear  about 
you.  Several  years  ago  I  read  such  a  lot  in  the 
papers  about  the  wonderful  things  you  did  in 
Japan,  and  how  the  Emperor  decorated  you. 
55 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

What  was  it,  Commander  of  the  Order  of  the 
Rising  Sun?  That  sounds  like  'The  Mikado.' 
And  what  about  your  new  bridge  —  in  Canada, 
is  n't  it,  and  it 's  to  be  the  longest  one  in  the 
world  and  has  some  queer  name  I  can't  re- 
member." 

Hartley  shook  his  head  and  smiled  drolly. 
"Since  when  have  you  been  interested  in 
bridges?  Or  have  you  learned  to  be  interested 
in  everything?  And  is  that  a  part  of  success?  " 

"Why,  how  absurd!  As  if  I  were  not  always 
interested!"  Hilda  exclaimed. 

"Well,  I  think  we  won't  talk  about  bridges 
here,  at  any  rate."  Bartley  looked  down  at 
the  toe  of  her  yellow  slipper  which  was  tapping 
the  rug  impatiently  under  the  hem  of  her  gown. 
"But  I  wonder  whether  you'd  think  me  im- 
pertinent if  I  asked  you  to  let  me  come  to  see 
you  sometime  and  tell  you  about  them?" 

"Why  should  I?  Ever  so  many  people  come 
on  Sunday  afternoons." 
56 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"I  know.  Mainhall  offered  to  take  me.  But 
you  must  know  that  I've  been  in  London  sev- 
eral times  within  the  last  few  years,  and  you 
might  very  well  think  that  just  now  is  a  rather 
inopportune  time  — " 

She  cut  him  short.  "Nonsense.  One  of  the 
pleasantest  things  about  success  is  that  it  makes 
people  want  to  look  one  up,  if  that 's  what  you 
mean.  I  'm  like  every  one  else  —  more  agree- 
able to  meet  when  things  are  going  well  with 
me.  Don't  you  suppose  it  gives  me  any  pleas- 
ure to  do  something  that  people  like?" 

"Does  it?  Oh,  how  fine  it  all  is,  your  coming 
on  like  this!  But  I  did  n't  want  you  to  think 
it  was  because  of  that  I  wanted  to  see  you." 
He  spoke  very  seriously  and  looked  down  at 
the  floor. 

Hilda  studied  him  in  wide-eyed  astonishment 

for  a  moment,  and  then  broke  into  a  low, 

amused  laugh.  "My  dear  Mr.  Alexander,  you 

have  strange  delicacies.  If  you  please,  that  is 

57 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

exactly  why  you  wish  to  see  me.   We  under- 
stand that,  do  we  not?" 

Bartley  looked  ruffled  and  turned  the  seal 
ring  on  his  little  finger  about  awkwardly. 

Hilda  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  watching  him 
indulgently  out  of  her  shrewd  eyes.  "Come, 
don't  be  angry,  but  don't  try  to  pose  for  me, 
or  to  be  anything  but  what  you  are.  If  you 
care  to  come,  it's  yourself  I'll  be  glad  to  see, 
and  you  thinking  well  of  yourself.  Don't  try 
to  wear  a  cloak  of  humility;  it  does  n't  become 
you.  Stalk  in  as  you  are  and  don't  make  ex- 
cuses. I'm  not  accustomed  to  inquiring  into 
the  motives  of  my  guests.  That  would  hardly 
be  safe,  even  for  Lady  Walford,  in  a  great  house 
like  this." 

"Sunday  afternoon,  then,"  said  Alexander, 
as  she  rose  to  join  her  hostess.  "How  early 
may  I  come?" 

"I'm  at  home  after  four,  and  I'll  be  glad  to 
see  you,  Bartley." 

58 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

She  gave  him  her  hand  and  flushed  and 
laughed.  He  bent  over  it  a  little  stiffly.  She 
went  away  on  Lady  Walford's  arm,  and  as  he 
stood  watching  her  yellow  train  glide  down  the 
long  floor  he  looked  rather  sullen.  He  felt  that 
he  had  not  come  out  of  it  very  brilliantly. 


CHAPTER 
IV 

ON  Sunday  afternoon  Alexander  remembered 
Miss  Burgoyne's  invitation  and  called  at  her 
apartment.  He  found  it  a  delightful  little  place 
and  he  met  charming  people  there.  Hilda  lived 
alone,  attended  by  a  very  pretty  and  compe- 
tent French  servant  who  answered  the  door 
and  brought  in  the  tea.  Alexander  arrived 
early,  and  some  twenty-odd  people  dropped  in 
during  the  course  of  the  afternoon.  Hugh  Mac- 
Connell  came  with  his  sister,  and  stood  about, 
managing  his  tea-cup  awkwardly  and  watching 
every  one  out  of  his  deep-set,  faded  eyes.  He 
seemed  to  have  made  a  resolute  effort  at 
tidiness  of  attire,  and  his  sister,  a  robust,  florid 
woman  with  a  splendid  joviality  about  her, 
kept  eyeing  his  freshly  creased  clothes  appre- 
hensively. It  was  not  very  long,  indeed,  before 
60 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

his  coat  hung  with  a  discouraged  sag  from  his 
gaunt  shoulders  and  his  hair  and  beard  were 
rumpled  as  if  he  had  been  out  in  a  gale.  His 
dry  humor  went  under  a  cloud  of  absent- 
minded  kindliness  which,  Mainhall  explained, 
always  overtook  him  here.  He  was  never  so 
witty  or  so  sharp  here  as  elsewhere,  and  Alex- 
ander thought  he  behaved  as  if  he  were  an 
elderly  relative  come  in  to  a  young  girl's  party. 
The  editor  of  a  monthly  review  came  with  his 
wife,  and  Lady  Kildare,  the  Irish  philanthro- 
pist, brought  her  young  nephew,  Robert  Owen, 
who  had  come  up  from  Oxford,  and  who  was 
visibly  excited  and  gratified  by  his  first  intro- 
duction to  Miss  Burgoyne.  Hilda  was  very 
nice  to  him,  and  he  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  chair, 
flushed  with  his  conversational  efforts  and  mov- 
ing his  chin  about  nervously  over  his  high  collar. 
Sarah  Frost,  the  novelist,  came  with  her  hus- 
band, a  very  genial  and  placid  old  scholar  who 
had  become  slightly  deranged  upon  the  subject 
61 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

of  the  fourth  dimension.  On  other  matters  he 
was  perfectly  rational  and  he  was  easy  and 
pleasing  in  conversation.  He  looked  very  much 
like  Agassiz,  and  his  wife,  in  her  old-fashioned 
black  silk  dress,  overskirted  and  tight-sleeved, 
reminded  Alexander  of  the  early  pictures  of 
Mrs.  Browning.  Hilda  seemed  particularly 
fond  of  this  quaint  couple,  and  Bartley  himself 
was  so  pleased  with  their  mild  and  thoughtful 
converse  that  he  took  his  leave  when  they  did, 
and  walked  with  them  over  to  Oxford  Street, 
where  they  waited  for  their  'bus.  They  asked 
him  to  come  to  see  them  in  Chelsea,  and  they 
spoke  very  tenderly  of  Hilda.  "She's  a  dear, 
unworldly  little  thing,"  said  the  philosopher 
absently;  "more  like  the  stage  people  of  my 
young  days  —  folk  of  simple  manners.  There 
are  n't  many  such  left.  American  tours  have 
spoiled  them,  I  'm  afraid.  They  have  all  grown 
very  smart.  Lamb  would  n't  care  a  great  deal 
about  many  of  them,  I  fancy." 
62 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Alexander  went  back  to  Bedford  Square  a 
second  Sunday  afternoon.  He  had  a  long  talk 
with  MacConnell,  but  he  got  no  word  with 
Hilda  alone,  and  he  left  in  a  discontented  state 
of  mind.  For  the  rest  of  the  week  he  was 
nervous  and  unsettled,  and  kept  rushing  his 
work  as  if  he  were  preparing  for  immediate  de- 
parture. On  Thursday  afternoon  he  cut  short 
a  committee  meeting,  jumped  into  a  hansom, 
and  drove  to  Bedford  Square.  He  sent  up  his 
card,  but  it  came  back  to  him  with  a  message 
scribbled  across  the  front. 

So  sorry  I  can't  see  you.  Will  you  come 
and  dine  with  me  Sunday  evening  at  half-past 

seven  ? 

H.  B. 

When  Bartley  arrived  at  Bedford  Square  on 

Sunday  evening,  Marie,  the  pretty  little  French 

girl,  met  him  at  the  door  and  conducted  him 

upstairs.  Hilda  was  writing  in  her  living-room, 

63 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

under  the  light  of  a  tall  desk  lamp.  Bartley 
recognized  the  primrose  satin  gown  she  had 
worn  that  first  evening  at  Lady  Walford's. 

"I'm  so  pleased  that  you  think  me  worth 
that  yellow  dress,  you  know,"  he  said,  taking 
her  hand  and  looking  her  over  admiringly  from 
the  toes  of  her  canary  slippers  to  her  smoothly 
parted  brown  hair.  "Yes,  it's  very,  very  pretty. 
Every  one  at  Lady  Walford's  was  looking  at  it." 

Hilda  curtsied.  "Is  that  why  you  think  it 
pretty?  I've  no  need  for  fine  clothes  in  Mac's 
play  this  time,  so  I  can  afford  a  few  duddies  for 
myself.  It's  owing  to  that  same  chance, by  the 
way,  that  I  am  able  to  ask  you  to  dinner.  I 
don't  need  Marie  to  dress  me  this  season,  so  she 
keeps  house  for  me,  and  my  little  Galway  girl 
has  gone  home  for  a  visit.  I  should  never  have 
asked  you  if  Molly  had  been  here,  for  I  remem- 
ber you  don't  like  English  cookery." 

Alexander  walked  about  the  room,  looking  at 
everything. 

64 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"I  have  n't  had  a  chance  yet  to  tell  you  what 
a  jolly  little  place  I  think  this  is.  Where  did  you 
get  those  etchings?  They're  quite  unusual, 
are  n't  they?" 

"Lady  Westmere  sent  them  to  me  from 
Rome  last  Christmas.  She  is  very  much  inter- 
ested in  the  American  artist  who  did  them. 
They  are  all  sketches  made  about  the  Villa 
d'Este,  you  see.  He  painted  that  group  of 
cypresses  for  the  Salon,  and  it  was  bought 
for  the  Luxembourg." 

Alexander  walked  over  to  the  bookcases. 
"It 's  the  air  of  the  whole  place  here  that  I  like. 
You  have  n't  got  anything  that  does  n't  belong. 
Seems  to  me  it  looks  particularly  well  to-night. 
And  you  have  so  many  flowers.  I  like  these 
little  yellow  irises." 

"Rooms  always  look  better  by  lamplight  — 

in  London,  at  least.  Though  Marie  is  clean  — 

really  clean,  as  the  French  are.   Why  do  you 

look  at  the  flowers  so  critically?    Marie  got 

65 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

them  all  fresh  in  Covent  Garden  market  yes- 
terday morning." 

"  I  'm  glad,"  said  Alexander  simply.  "  I  can't 
tell  you  how  glad  I  am  to  have  you  so  pretty 
and  comfortable  here,  and  to  hear  every  one 
saying  such  nice  things  about  you.  You  Ve  got 
awfully  nice  friends,"  he  added  humbly,  pick- 
ing up  a  little  jade  elephant  from  her  desk. 
"Those  fellows  are  all  very  loyal,  even  Main- 
hall.  They  don't  talk  of  any  one  else  as  they 
do  of  you." 

Hilda  sat  down  on  the  couch  and  said  seri- 
ously: "I've  a  neat  little  sum  in  the  bank, 
too,  now,  and  I  own  a  mite  of  a  hut  in  Gal- 
way.  It 's  not  worth  much,  but  I  love  it.  I  Ve 
managed  to  save  something  every  year,  and 
that  with  helping  my  three  sisters  now  and  then, 
and  tiding  poor  Cousin  Mike  over  bad  seasons. 
He 's  that  gifted,  you  know,  but  he  will  drink 
and  loses  more  good  engagements  than  other 
fellows  ever  get.  And  I  Ve  traveled  a  bit,  too." 
66 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Marie  opened  the  door  and  smilingly  an- 
nounced that  dinner  was  served. 

"My  dining-room,"  Hilda  explained,  as  she 
led  the  way,  "is  the  tiniest  place  you  have  ever 
seen." 

It  was  a  tiny  room,  hung  all  round  with 
French  prints,  above  which  ran  a  shelf  full  of 
china.  Hilda  saw  Alexander  look  up  at  it. 

"It's  not  particularly  rare,"  she  said,  "but 
some  of  it  was  my  mother's.  Heaven  knows 
how  she  managed  to  keep  it  whole,  through  all 
our  wanderings,  or  in  what  baskets  and  bundles 
and  theatre  trunks  it  has  n't  been  stowed  away. 
We  always  had  our  tea  out  of  those  blue  cups 
when  I  was  a  little  girl,  sometimes  in  the  queer- 
est lodgings,  and  sometimes  on  a  trunk  at  the 
theatre  —  queer  theatres,  for  that  matter." 

It  was  a  wonderful  little  dinner.  There  was 

watercress  soup,  and  sole,  and  a  delightful 

omelette  stuffed  with  mushrooms  and  truffles, 

and  two  small  rare  ducklings,  and  artichokes, 

67 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

and  a  dry  yellow  Rhone  wine  of  which  Bartley 
had  always  been  very  fond.  He  drank  it  ap- 
preciatively and  remarked  that  there  was  still 
no  other  he  liked  so  well. 

"I  have  some  champagne  for  you,  too.  I 
don't  drink  it  myself,  but  I  like  to  see  it  behave 
when  it 's  poured.  There  is  nothing  else  that 
looks  so  jolly." 

"Thank  you.   But  I  don't  like  it  so  well  as 
this."  Bartley  held  the  yellow  wine  against  the 
light  and  squinted  into  it  as  he  turned  the  glass 
slowly  about.    "You  have  traveled,  you  say.    , 
Have  you  been  in  Paris  much  these  late  years?  " 

Hilda  lowered  one  of  the  candle-shades  care- 
fully. "Oh,  yes,  I  go  over  to  Paris  often. 
There  are  few  changes  in  the  old  Quarter. 
Dear  old  Madame  Anger  is  dead  —  but  per- 
haps you  don't  remember  her?" 

"Don't  I,  though!   I'm  so  sorry  to  hear  it. 
How  did  her  son  turn  out?   I  remember  how 
she  saved  and  scraped  for  him,  and  how  he 
68 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

always  lay  abed  till  ten  o'clock.  He  was  the 
laziest  fellow  at  the  Beaux  Arts;  and  that 's 
saying  a  good  deal." 

"Well,  he  is  still  clever  and  lazy.  They  say 
he  is  a  good  architect  when  he  will  work.  He 's 
a  big,  handsome  creature,  and  he  hates  Ameri- 
cans as  much  as  ever.  But  Angel  —  do  you 
remember  Angel?" 

"Perfectly.  Did  she  ever  get  back  to  Brit- 
tany and  her  bains  de  mer  ?" 

"Ah,  no.  Poor  Angel!  She  got  tired  of 
cooking  and  scouring  the  coppers  in  Madame 
Anger's  little  kitchen,  so  she  ran  away  with  a 
soldier,  and  then  with  another  soldier.  Too 
bad!  She  still  lives  about  the  Quarter,  and, 
though  there  is  always  a  soldat,  she  has  be- 
come a  blanchisseuse  de  fin.  She  did  my 
blouses  beautifully  the  last  time  I  was  there, 
and  was  so  delighted  to  see  me  again.  I  gave 
her  all  my  old  clothes,  even  my  old  hats, 
though  she  always  wears  her  Breton  head- 
69 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

dress.  Her  hair  is  still  like  flax,  and  her 
blue  eyes  are  just  like  a  baby's,  and  she  has 
the  same  three  freckles  on  her  little  nose, 
and  talks  about  going  back  to  her  bains  de 


Bartley  looked  at  Hilda  across  the  yellow 
light  of  the  candles  and  broke  into  a  low,  happy 
laugh.  "How  jolly  it  was  being  young,  Hilda! 
Do  you  remember  that  first  walk  we  took  to- 
gether in  Paris?  We  walked  down  to  the  Place 
Saint-Michel  to  buy  some  lilacs.  Do  you  re- 
member how  sweet  they  smelled?" 

"Indeed  I  do.  Come,  we  '11  have  our  coffee  in 
the  other  room,  and  you  can  smoke." 

Hilda  rose  quickly,  as  if  she  wished  to  change 
the  drift  of  their  talk,  but  Bartley  found  it 
pleasant  to  continue  it. 

"What  a  warm,  soft  spring  evening  that 

was,"  he  went  on,  as  they  sat  down  in  the  study 

with  the  coffee  on  a  little  table  between  them  ; 

"and  the  sky,  over  the  bridges,  was  just  the 

70 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

color  of  the  lilacs.  We  walked  on  down  by  the 
river,  didn't  we?" 

Hilda  laughed  and  looked  at  him  question- 
ingly.  He  saw  a  gleam  in  her  eyes  that  he  re- 
membered even  better  than  the  episode  he  was 
recalling. 

"I  think  we  did,"  she  answered  demurely. 
"  It  was  on  the  Quai  we  met  that  woman  who 
was  crying  so  bitterly.  I  gave  her  a  spray  of 
lilac,  I  remember,  and  you  gave  her  a  franc. 
I  was  frightened  at  your  prodigality." 

"  I  expect  it  was  the  last  franc  I  had.  What  a 
strong  brown  face  she  had,  and  very  tragic.  She 
looked  at  us  with  such  despair  and  longing,  out 
from  under  her  black  shawl.  What  she  wanted 
from  us  was  neither  our  flowers  nor  our  francs, 
but  just  our  youth.  I  remember  it  touched  me 
so.  I  would  have  given  her  some  of  mine  off 
my  back,  if  I  could.  I  had  enough  and  to  spare 
then,"  Bartley  mused,  and  looked  thought- 
fully at  his  cigar. 

71 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

They  were  both  remembering  what  the 
woman  had  said  when  she  took  the  money: 
"God  give  you  a  happy  love!"  It  was  not  in 
the  ingratiating  tone  of  the  habitual  beggar :  it 
had  come  out  of  the  depths  of  the  poor  crea- 
ture's sorrow,  vibrating  with  pity  for  their 
youth  and  despair  at  the  terribleness  of  human 
life;  it  had  the  anguish  of  a  voice  of  prophecy. 
Until  she  spoke,  Bartley  had  not  realized  that 
he  was  in  love.  The  strange  woman,  and  her 
passionate  sentence  that  rang  out  so  sharply, 
had  frightened  them  both.  They  went  home 
sadly  with  the  lilacs,  back  to  the  Rue  Saint- 
Jacques,  walking  very  slowly,  arm  in  arm. 
When  they  reached  the  house  where  Hilda 
lodged,  Bartley  went  across  the  court  with  her, 
and  up  the  dark  old  stairs  to  the  third  landing; 
and  there  he  had  kissed  her  for  the  first  time. 
He  had  shut  his  eyes  to  give  him  the  courage, 
he  remembered,  and  she  had  trembled  so  — 

Bartley  started  when  Hilda  rang  the  little 
72 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

bell  beside  her.  "Dear  me,  why  did  you  do 
that  ?  I  had  quite  forgotten  —  I  was  back 
there.  It  was  very  jolly,"  he  murmured  lazily, 
as  Marie  came  in  to  take  away  the  coffee. 

Hilda  laughed  and  went  over  to  the  piano. 
"Well,  we  are  neither  of  us  twenty  now,  you 
know.  Have  I  told  you  about  my  new  play? 
Mac  is  writing  one;  really  for  me  this  time. 
You  see,  I'm  coming  on." 

"  I  Ve  seen  nothing  else.  What  kind  of  a  part 
is  it?  Shall  you  wear  yellow  gowns?  I  hope 


so." 


He  was  looking  at  her  round,  slender  figure, 
as  she  stood  by  the  piano,  turning  over  a  pile  of 
music,  and  he  felt  the  energy  in  every  line  of  it. 

"No,  it  is  n't  a  dress-up  part.  He  does  n't 
seem  to  fancy  me  in  fine  feathers.  He  says  I 
ought  to  be  minding  the  pigs  at  home,  and 
I  suppose  I  ought.  But  he's  given  me  some 
good  Irish  songs.  Listen." 

She  sat  down  at  the  piano  and  sang.  When 
73 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

she  finished,  Alexander  shook  himself  out  of  a 
reverie. 

"Sing  'The  Harp  that  Once/  Hilda.  You 
used  to  sing  it  so  well." 

"Nonsense.  Of  course  I  can't  really  sing, 
except  the  way  my  mother  and  grandmother 
did  before  me.  Most  actresses  nowadays  learn 
to  sing  properly,  so  I  tried  a  master ;  but  he 
confused  me,  just!" 

Alexander  laughed.  "All  the  same,  sing  it, 
Hilda." 

Hilda  started  up  from  the  stool  and  moved    , 
restlessly  toward  the  window.  "  It 's  really  too 
warm  in  this  room  to  sing.  Don't  you  feel  it?  " 

Alexander  went  over  and  opened  the  window 
for  her.  "Are  n't  you  afraid  to  let  the  wind 
low  like  that  on  your  neck?  Can't  I  get  a 
scarf  or  something?" 

"Ask  a  theatre  lydy  if  she 's  afraid  of  drafts ! " 
Hilda  laughed.  "But  perhaps,  as  I'm  so  warm 
—  give  me  your  handkerchief.   There,  just  in 
74 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

front."  He  slipped  the  corners  carefully  under 
her  shoulder-straps.  "There,  that  will  do.  It 
looks  like  a  bib."  She  pushed  his  hand  away 
quickly  and  stood  looking  out  into  the  deserted 
square.  "Isn't  London  a  tomb  on  Sunday 
night?" 

Alexander  caught  the  agitation  in  her  voice. 
He  stood  a  little  behind  her,  and  tried  to  steady 
himself  as  he  said:  "It's  soft  and  misty.  See 
how  white  the  stars  are." 

For  a  long  time  neither  Hilda  nor  Bartley 
spoke.  They  stood  close  together,  looking  out 
into  the  wan,  watery  sky,  breathing  always 
more  quickly  and  lightly,  and  it  seemed  as  if 
All  the  clocks  in  the  world  had  stopped.  Sud- 
denly he  moved  the  clenched  hand  he  held 
behind  him  and  dropped  it  violently  at  his  side. 
He  felt  a  tremor  run  through  the  slender  yellow 
figure  in  front  of  him. 

She  caught  his  handkerchief  from  her  throat 
and  thrust  it  at  him  without  turning  round. 
75 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"Here,  take  it.  You  must  go  now,  Bartley. 
Good-night." 

Bartley  leaned  over  her  shoulder,  without 
touching  her,  and  whispered  in  her  ear:  "You 
are  giving  me  a  chance?" 

"Yes.  Take  it  and  go.  This  is  n't  fair,  you 
know.  Good-night." 

Alexander  unclenched  the  two  hands  at  his 
sides.  With  one  he  threw  down  the  window 
and  with  the  other  —  still  standing  behind  her 
—  he  drew  her  back  against  him. 

She  uttered  a  little  cry,  threw  her  arms  over 
her  head,  and  drew  his  face  down  to  hers. 
"Are  you  going  to  let  me  love  you  a  little, 
Bartley?"  she  whispered. 


CHAPTER 
V 

IT  was  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  Christ- 
mas. Mrs  Alexander  had  been  driving  about 
all  the  morning,  leaving  presents  at  the  houses 
of  her  friends.  She  lunched  alone,  and  as  she  rose 
from  the  table  she  spoke  to  the  butler : "  Thomas, 
I  am  going  down  to  the  kitchen  now  to  see 
Norah.  In  half  an  hour  you  are  to  bring  the 
greens  up  from  the  cellar  and  put  them  in  the 
library.  Mr.  Alexander  will  be  home  at  three 
to  hang  them  himself.  Don't  forget  the  step- 
ladder,  and  plenty  of  tacks  and  string.  You 
may  bring  the  azaleas  upstairs.  Take  the  white 
one  to  Mr.  Alexander's  study.  Put  the  two 
pink  ones  in  this  room,  and  the  red  one  in  the 
drawing-room." 

A  little  before  three  o'clock  Mrs.  Alexander 
went  into  the  library  to  see  that  everything  was 
77 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

ready.  She  pulled  the  window  shades  high,  for 
the  weather  was  dark  and  stormy,  and  there 
was  little  light,  even  in  the  streets.  A  foot  of 
snow  had  fallen  during  the  morning,  and  the 
wide  space  over  the  river  was  thick  with  flying 
flakes  that  fell  and  wreathed  the  masses  of 
floating  ice.  Winifred  was  standing  by  the 
window  when  she  heard  the  front  door  open. 
She  hurried  to  the  hall  as  Alexander  came 
stamping  in,  covered  with  snow.  He  kissed  her 
joyfully  and  brushed  away  the  snow  that  fell 
on  her  hair. 

"I  wish  I  had  asked  you  to  meet  me  at  the 
office  and  walk  home  with  me,  Winifred.  The 
Common  is  beautiful.  The  boys  have  swept 
the  snow  off  the  pond  and  are  skating  furiously. 
Did  the  cyclamens  come?" 

"An  hour  ago.  What  splendid  ones!  But 
are  n't  you  frightfully  extravagant?" 

"Not  for  Christmas-time.    I'll  go  upstairs 
and  change  my  coat.    I  shall  be  down  in  a 
78 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

moment.  Tell  Thomas  to  get  everything 
ready." 

When  Alexander  reappeared,  he  took  his 
wife's  arm  and  went  with  her  into  the  library. 
"When  did  the  azaleas  get  here?  Thomas  has 
got  the  white  one  in  my  room." 

"I  told  him  to  put  it  there." 

"But,  I  say,  it's  much  the  finest  of  the  lot!" 

"  That 's  why  I  had  it  put  there.  There  is  too 
much  color  in  that  room  for  a  red  one,  you 
know." 

Bartley  began  to  sort  the  greens.  "It  looks 
very  splendid  there,  but  I  feel  piggish  to  have 
it.  However,  we  really  spend  more  time  there 
than  anywhere  else  in  the  house.  Will  you 
hand  me  the  holly?" 

He  climbed  up  the  stepladder,  which  creaked 
under  his  weight,  and  began  to  twist  the  tough 
stems  of  the  holly  into  the  framework  of  the 
chandelier. 

"I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  I  had  a  letter  from 
79 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Wilson,  this  morning,  explaining  his  telegram. 
He  is  coming  on  because  an  old  uncle  up  in  Veiv 
mont  has  conveniently  died  and  left  Wilson  a 
little  money  —  something  like  ten  thousand. 
He 's  coming  on  to  settle  up  the  estate.  Won't 
it  be  jolly  to  have  him?" 

"And  how  fine  that  he's  come  into  a  little 
money.  I  can  see  him  posting  down  State 
Street  to  the  steamship  offices.  He  will  get  a 
good  many  trips  out  of  that  ten  thousand. 
What  can  have  detained  him?  I  expected  him 
here  for  luncheon." 

"Those  trains  from  Albany  are  always  late. 
He'll  be  along  sometime  this  afternoon.  And 
now,  don't  you  want  to  go  upstairs  and  lie  down 
for  an  hour?  You  Ve  had  a  busy  morning  and  I 
don't  want  you  to  be  tired  to-night." 

After    his    wife    went    upstairs    Alexander 

worked  energetically  at  the  greens  for  a  few 

moments.    Then,  as  he  was  cutting  off  a  length 

of  string,  he  sighed  suddenly  and  sat  down, 

80 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

staring  out  of  the  window  at  the  snow.  The 
animation  died  out  of  his  face,  but  in  his  eyes 
there  was  a  restless  light,  a  look  of  apprehension 
and  suspense.  He  kept  clasping  and  unclasping 
his  big  hands  as  if  he  were  trying  to  realize 
something.  The  clock  ticked  through  the  min- 
utes of  a  half -hour  and  the  afternoon  outside 
began  to  thicken  and  darken  turbidly.  Alex- 
ander, since  he  first  sat  down,  had  not  changed 
his  position.  He  leaned  forward,  his  hands  be- 
tween his  knees,  scarcely  breathing,  as  if  he 
were  holding  himself  away  from  his  surround- 
ings, from  the  room,  and  from  the  very  chair  in 
which  he  sat,  from  everything  except  the  wild 
eddies  of  snow  above  the  river  on  which  his 
eyes  were  fixed  with  feverish  intentness,  as 
if  he  were  trying  to  project  himself  thither. 
When  at  last  Lucius  Wilson  was  announced, 
Alexander  sprang  eagerly  to  his  feet  and  hur- 
ried to  meet  his  old  instructor. 
"Hello,  Wilson.  What  luck!  Come  into  the 
81 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

library.  We  are  to  have  a  lot  of  people  to  din- 
ner to-night,  and  Winifred 's  lying  down.  You 
will  excuse  her,  won't  you  ?  And  now  what 
about  yourself?  Sit  down  and  tell  me  every- 
thing." 

"I  think  I'd  rather  move  about,  if  you  don't 
mind.  I  've  been  sitting  in  the  train  for  a  week, 
it  seems  to  me."  Wilson  stood  before  the  fire 
with  his  hands  behind  him  and  looked  about 
the  room.  "You  have  been  busy.  Bartley,  if 
I'd  had  my  choice  of  all  possible  places  in 
which  to  spend  Christmas,  your  house  would 
certainly  be  the  place  I  'd  have  chosen.  Happy 
people  do  a  great  deal  for  their  friends.  A 
house  like  this  throws  its  warmth  out.  I  felt 
it  distinctly  as  I  was  coming  through  the 
Berkshires.  I  could  scarcely  believe  that  I  was 
to  see  Mrs.  Bartley  again  so  soon." 

"Thank  you,  Wilson.  She'll  be  as  glad  to 
see  you.  Shall  we  have  tea  now?  I'll  ring  for 
Thomas  to  clear  away  this  litter.  Winifred 
82 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

says  I  always  wreck  the  house  when  I  try  to  do 
anything.  Do  you  know,  I  am  quite  tired. 
Looks  as  if  I  were  not  used  to  work,  does  n't 
it?"  Alexander  laughed  and  dropped  into  a 
chair.  "You  know,  I'm  sailing  the  day  after 
New  Year's." 

"Again?  Why,  you've  been  over  twice  since 
I  was  here  in  the  spring,  have  n't  you?" 

"Oh,  I  was  in  London  about  ten  days  in 
the  summer.  Went  to  escape  the  hot  weather 
more  than  anything  else.  I  shan't  be  gone 
more  than  a  month  this  time.  Winifred  and  I 
have  been  up  in  Canada  for  most  of  the  au- 
tumn. That  Moorlock  Bridge  is  on  my  back 
all  the  time.  I  never  had  so  much  trouble  with 
a  job  before."  Alexander  moved  about  rest- 
lessly and  fell  to  poking  the  fire. 

"Have  n't  I  seen  in  the  papers  that  there  is 
some  trouble  about  a  tidewater  bridge  of  yours 
in  New  Jersey?" 

"Oh,  that  does  n't  amount  to  anything.  It's 
83 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

held  up  by  a  steel  strike.  A  bother,  of  course, 
but  the  sort  of  thing  one  is  always  having  to  put 
up  with.  But  the  Moorlock  Bridge  is  a  con- 
tinual anxiety.  You  see,  the  truth  is,  we  are 
having  to  build  pretty  well  to  the  strain  limit 
up  there.  They've  crowded  me  too  much  on 
the  cost.  It's  all  very  well  if  everything  goes 
well,  but  these  estimates  have  never  been  used 
for  anything  of  such  length  before.  However, 
there's  nothing  to  be  done.  They  hold  me  to 
the  scale  I  've  used  in  shorter  bridges.  The  last 
thing  a  bridge  commission  cares  about  is  the 
kind  of  bridge  you  build." 

When  Bartley  had  finished  dressing  for 
dinner  he  went  into  his  study,  where  he 
found  his  wife  arranging  flowers  on  his  writ- 
ing-table. 

"These  pink  roses  just  came  from  Mrs.  Hast- 
ings," she  said,  smiling,  "and  I  am  sure  she 
meant  them  for  you." 

84 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Bartley  looked  about  with  an  air  of  satisfac- 
tion at  the  greens  and  the  wreaths  in  the  win- 
dows. "  Have  you  a  moment,  Winifred?  I  have 
just  now  been  thinking  that  this  is  our  twelfth 
Christmas.  Can  you  realize  it?"  He  went  up 
to  the  table  and  took  her  hands  away  from  the 
flowers,  drying  them  with  his  pocket  handker- 
chief. "They've  been  awfully  happy  ones,  all 
of  them,  haven't  they?"  He  took  her  in  his 
arms  and  bent  back,  lifting  her  a  little  and  giv- 
ing her  a  long  kiss.  "You  are  happy,  aren't 
you,  Winifred?  More  than  anything  else  in 
the  world,  I  want  you  to  be  happy.  Some- 
times, of  late,  I've  thought  you  looked  as  if 
you  were  troubled." 

"No;  it's  only  when  you  are  troubled  and 
harassed  that  I  feel  worried,  Bartley.  I  wish 
you  always  seemed  as  you  do  to-night.  But 
you  don't,  always."  She  looked  earnestly  and 
inquiringly  into  his  eyes. 

Alexander  took  her  two  hands  from  his  shoul- 
85 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

ders  and  swung  them  back  and  forth  in  his 
own,  laughing  his  big  blond  laugh. 

"I'm  growing  older,  my  dear;  that's  what 
you  feel.  Now,  may  I  show  you  something? 
I  meant  to  save  them  until  to-morrow,  but  I 
want  you  to  wear  them  to-night."  He  took 
a  little  leather  box  out  of  his  pocket  and 
opened  it.  On  the  white  velvet  lay  two  long 
pendants  of  curiously  worked  gold,  set  with 
pearls.  Winifred  looked  from  the  box  to  Bart- 
ley  and  exclaimed:  — 

"Where  did  you  ever  find  such  gold  work, 
Bartley?" 

"It 'sold  Flemish.  Is  n't  it  fine?" 

"They  are  the  most  beautiful  things,  dear. 
But,  you  know,  I  never  wear  earrings." 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know.  But  I  want  you  to  wear 
them.  I  have  always  wanted  you  to.  So  few 
women  can.  There  must  be  a  good  ear,  to 
begin  with,  and  a  nose"  —  he  waved  his  hand 
—  "above  reproach.  Most  women  look  silly 
86 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

in  them.  They  go  only  with  faces  like  yours 
—  very,  very  proud,  and  just  a  little  hard." 

Winifred  laughed  as  she  went  over  to  the 
mirror  and  fitted  the  delicate  springs  to  the 
lobes  of  her  ears.  "Oh,  Bartley,  that  old  fool- 
ishness about  my  being  hard.  It  really  hurts 
my  feelings.  But  I  must  go  down  now.  Peo- 
ple are  beginning  to  come." 

Bartley  drew  her  arm  about  his  neck  and  went 
to  the  door  with  her.  "Not  hard  to  me,  Wini- 
fred," he  whispered.  "  Never,  never  hard  to  me." 

Left  alone,  he  paced  up  and  down  his  study. 
He  was  at  home  again,  among  all  the  dear  famil- 
iar things  that  spoke  to  him  of  so  many  happy 
years.  His  house  to-night  would  be  full  of 
charming  people,  who  liked  and  admired  him. 
Yet  all  the  time,  underneath  his  pleasure 
and  hopefulness  and  satisfaction,  he  was  con- 
scious of  the  vibration  of  an  unnatural  ex- 
citement. Amid  this  light  and  warmth  and 
friendliness,  he  sometimes  started  and  shud- 
87 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

dered,  as  if  some  one  had  stepped  on  his  grave. 
Something  had  broken  loose  in  him  of  which 
he  knew  nothing  except  that  it  was  sullen  and 
powerful,  and  that  it  wrung  and  tortured  him. 
Sometimes  it  came  upon  him  softly,  in  enervat- 
ing reveries.  Sometimes  it  battered  him  like 
the  cannon  rolling  in  the  hold  of  the  vessel. 
Always,  now,  it  brought  with  it  a  sense  of 
quickened  life,  of  stimulating  danger.  To-night 
it  came  upon  him  suddenly,  as  he  was  walking 
the  floor,  after  his  wife  left  him.  It  seemed  im- 
possible; he  could  not  believe  it.  He  glanced 
entreatingly  at  the  door,  as  if  to  call  her  back. 
He  heard  voices  in  the  hall  below,  and  knew  that 
he  must  go  down.  Going  over  to  the  window, 
he  looked  out  at  the  lights  across  the  river.  ' 
How  could  this  happen  here,  in  his  own  house, 
among  the  things  he  loved?  What  was  it  that 
reached  in  out  of  the  darkness  and  thrilled  him? 
As  he  stood  there  he  had  a  feeling  that  he  would 
never  escape.  He  shut  his  eyes  and  pressed  his 
88 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

forehead  against  the  cold  window  glass,  breath- 
ing in  the  chill  that  came  through  it.  "That 
this,"  he  groaned,  "that  this  should  have 
happened  to  me  I " 

On  New  Year's  day  a  thaw  set  in,  and  during 
the  night  torrents  of  rain  fell.  In  the  morning, 
the  morning  of  Alexander's  departure  for 
England,  the  river  was  streaked  with  fog  and 
the  rain  drove  hard  against  the  windows  of  the 
breakfast-room.  Alexander  had  finished  his 
coffee  and  was  pacing  up  and  down.  His  wife 
sat  at  the  table,  watching  him.  She  was  pale 
and  unnaturally  calm.  When  Thomas  brought 
the  letters,  Bartley  sank  into  his  chair  and  ran 
them  over  rapidly. 

"Here's  a  note  from  old  Wilson.  He's  safe 
back  at  his  grind,  and  says  he  had  a  bully  time. 
*The  memory  of  Mrs.  Bartley  will  make  my 
whole  winter  fragrant.'  Just  like  him.  He  will 
go  on  getting  measureless  satisfaction  out  of 
89 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

you  by  his  study  fire.  What  a  man  he  is  for 
looking  on  at  life! "  Bartley  sighed,  pushed  the 
letters  back  impatiently,  and  went  over  to  the 
window.  "This  is  a  nasty  sort  of  day  to  sail. 
I  've  a  notion  to  call  it  off.  Next  week  would  be 
time  enough." 

"That  would  only  mean  starting  twice.  It 
wouldn't  really  help  you  out  at  all,"  Mrs. 
Alexander  spoke  soothingly.  "  And  you  'd  come 
back  late  for  all  your  engagements." 

Bartley  began  jingling  some  loose  coins  in  his 
pocket.  "I  wish  things  would  let  me  rest.- 
I  'm  tired  of  work,  tired  of  people,  tired  of  trail- 
ing about."  He  looked  out  at  the  storm- 
beaten  river. 

Winifred  came  up  behind  him  and  put  a  hand 
on  his  shoulder.  "That 's  what  you  always  say, 
poor  Bartley!  At  bottom  you  really  like  all 
these  things.  Can't  you  remember  that?  " 

He  put  his  arm  about  her.  "All  the  same, 
life  runs  smoothly  enough  with  some  people, 
90 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

and  with  me  it 's  always  a  messy  sort  of  patch- 
work. It's  like  the  song;  peace  is  where  I  am 
not.  How  can  you  face  it  all  with  so  much 
fortitude?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  that  clear  gaze  which 
Wilson  had  so  much  admired,  which  he  had  felt 
implied  such  high  confidence  and  fearless  pride. 
"Oh,  I  faced  that  long  ago,  when  you  were  on 
your  first  bridge,  up  at  old  Allway .  I  knew  then 
that  your  paths  were  not  to  be  paths  of  peace, 
but  I  decided  that  I  wanted  to  follow  them." 

Bartley  and  his  wife  stood  silent  for  a  long 
time;  the  fire  crackled  in  the  grate,  the  rain 
beat  insistently  upon  the  windows,  and  the 
sleepy  Angora  looked  up  at  them  curiously. 

Presently  Thomas  made  a  discreet  sound  at 
the  door.  "Shall  Edward  bring  down  your 
trunks,  sir?" 

"Yes;  they  are  ready.  Tell  him  not  to  for- 
get the  big  portfolio  on  the  study  table." 

Thomas  withdrew,  closing  the  door  softly. 
91 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Bartley  turned  away  from  his  wife,  still  holding 
her  hand.  "It  never  gets  any  easier,  Winifred." 
They  both  started  at  the  sound  of  the  car- 
riage on  the  pavement  outside.  Alexander  sat 
down  and  leaned  his  head  on  his  hand.  His 
wife  bent  over  him.  "Courage,"  she  said  gayly. 
Bartley  rose  and  rang  the  bell.  Thomas  brought 
him  his  hat  and  stick  and  ulster.  At  the 
sight  of  these,  the  supercilious  Angora  moved 
restlessly,  quitted  her  red  cushion  by  the  fire, 
and  came  up,  waving  her  tail  in  vexation  at 
these  ominous  indications  of  change.  Alex? 
ander  stooped  to  stroke  her,  and  then  plunged 
into  his  coat  and  drew  on  his  gloves.  His  wife 
held  his  stick,  smiling.  Bartley  smiled  too, 
and  his  eyes  cleared.  "I'll  work  like  the  devil, 
Winifred,  and  be  home  again  before  you  realize 
I've  gone."  He  kissed  her  quickly  several 
times,  hurried  out  of  the  front  door  into  the 
rain,  and  waved  to  her  from  the  carriage  win- 
dow as  the  driver  was  starting  his  melan- 
92 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

choly,  dripping  black  horses.  Alexander  sat 
with  his  hands  clenched  on  his  knees.  As  the 
carriage  turned  up  the  hill,  he  lifted  one 
hand  and  brought  it  down  violently.  "This 
time"  —  he  spoke  aloud  and  through  his  set 
teeth  —  "this  time  I'm  going  to  end  it!" 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day  out, 
Alexander  was  sitting  well  to  the  stern,  on  the 
windward  side  where  the  chairs  were  few,  his 
rugs  over  him  and  the  collar  of  his  fur-lined 
coat  turned  up  about  his  ears.  The  weather  had 
so  far  been  dark  and  raw.  For  two  hours  he 
had  been  watching  the  low,  dirty  sky  and  the 
beating  of  the  heavy  rain  upon  the  iron-colored 
sea.  There  was  a  long,  oily  swell  that  made 
exercise  laborious.  The  decks  smelled  of  damp 
woolens,  and  the  air  was  so  humid  that  drops  of 
moisture  kept  gathering  upon  his  hair  and  mus- 
tache. He  seldom  moved  except  to  brush  them 
away.  The  great  open  spaces  made  him  pas- 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

sive  and  the  restlessness  of  the  water  quieted 
him.  He  intended  during  the  voyage  to  de- 
cide upon  a  course  of  action,  but  he  held  all 
this  away  from  him  for  the  present  and  lay  in 
a  blessed  gray  oblivion.  Deep  down  in  him 
somewhere  his  resolution  was  weakening  and 
strengthening,  ebbing  and  flowing.  The  thing 
that  perturbed  him  went  on  as  steadily  as  his 
pulse,  but  he  was  almost  unconscious  of  it.  He 
was  submerged  in  the  vast  impersonal  grayness 
about  him,  and  at  intervals  the  sidelong  roll  of 
the  boat  measured  off  time  like  the  ticking  of  a 
clock.  He  felt  released  from  everything  that 
troubled  and  perplexed  him.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
tricked  and  outwitted  torturing  memories,  had 
actually  managed  to  get  on  board  without  them.  • 
He  thought  of  nothing  at  all.  If  his  mind  now 
and  again  picked  a  face  out  of  the  grayness, 
it  was  Lucius  Wilson's,  or  the  face  of  an  old 
schoolmate,  forgotten  for  years;  or  it  was  the 
slim  outline  of  a  favorite  greyhound  he  used 
94 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

to  hunt  jack -rabbits  with  when  he  was  a 
boy. 

Toward  six  o'clock  the  wind  rose  and  tugged 
at  the  tarpaulin  and  brought  the  swell  higher. 
After  dinner  Alexander  came  back  to  the  wet 
deck,  piled  his  damp  rugs  over  him  again,  and 
sat  smoking,  losing  himself  in  the  obliterating 
blackness  and  drowsing  in  the  rush  of  the  gale. 
Before  he  went  below  a  few  bright  stars  were 
pricked  off  between  heavily  moving  masses  of 
cloud. 

The  next  morning  was  bright  and  mild,  with 
a  fresh  breeze.  Alexander  felt  the  need  of  exer- 
cise even  before  he  came  out  of  his  cabin.  When 
he  went  on  deck  the  sky  was  blue  and  blinding, 
with  heavy  whiffs  of  white  cloud,  smoke-colored 
at  the  edges,  moving  rapidly  across  it.  The 
water  was  roughish,  a  cold,  clear  indigo  break- 
ing into  whitecaps.  Bartley  walked  for  two 
hours,  and  then  stretched  himself  in  the  sun 
until  lunch-time. 

95 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

In  the  afternoon  he  wrote  a  long  letter  to 
Winifred.  Later,  as  he  walked  the  deck  through 
a  splendid  golden  sunset,  his  spirits  rose  contin- 
ually. It  was  agreeable  to  come  to  himself 
again  after  several  days  of  numbness  and  tor- 
por. He  stayed  out  until  the  last  tinge  of  violet 
had  faded  from  the  water.  There  was  literally 
a  taste  of  life  on  his  lips  as  he  sat  down  to  din^ 
ner  and  ordered  a  bottle  of  champagne.  He  was 
late  in  finishing  his  dinner,  and  drank  rather 
more  wine  than  he  had  meant  to.  When  he 
went  above,  the  wind  had  risen  and  the  deck 
was  almost  deserted.  As  he  stepped  out  of  the 
door  a  gale  lifted  his  heavy  fur  coat  about  his 
shoulders.  He  fought  his  way  up  the  deck  with 
keen  exhilaration.  The  moment  he  stepped,  al- 
most out  of  breath,  behind  the  shelter  of  the 
stern,  the  wind  was  cut  off,  and  he  felt,  like  a 
rush  of  warm  air,  a  sense  of  close  and  intimate 
companionship.  He  started  back  and  tore  his 
coat  open  as  if  something  warm  were  actually 
96 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

clinging  to  him  beneath  it.  He  hurried  up  the 
deck  and  went  into  the  saloon  parlor,  full  of 
women  who  had  retreated  thither  from  the 
sharp  wind.  He  threw  himself  upon  them. 
He  talked  delightfully  to  the  older  ones  and 
played  accompaniments  for  the  younger  ones 
until  the  last  sleepy  girl  had  followed  her 
mother  below.  Then  he  went  into  the  smok- 
ing-room. He  played  bridge  until  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  managed  to  lose  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money  without  really  noticing 
that  he  was  doing  so. 

After  the  break  of  one  fine  day  the  weather 
was  pretty  consistently  dull.  When  the  low  sky 
thinned  a  trifle,  the  pale  white  spot  of  a  sun 
did  no  more  than  throw  a  bluish  lustre  on  the 
water,  giving  it  the  dark  brightness  of  newly 
cut  lead.  Through  one  after  another  of  those 
gray  days  Alexander  drowsed  and  mused, 
drinking  in  the  grateful  moisture.  But  the 
complete  peace  of  the  first  part  of  the  voyage 
97 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

was  over.  Sometimes  he  rose  suddenly  from  his 
chair  as  if  driven  out,  and  paced  the  deck  for 
hours.  People  noticed  his  propensity  for  walk- 
ing in  rough  weather,  and  watched  him  curi- 
ously as  he  did  his  rounds.  From  his  abstrac- 
tion and  the  determined  set  of  his  jaw,  they 
fancied  he  must  be  thinking  about  his  bridge. 
Every  one  had  heard  of  the  new  cantilever 
bridge  in  Canada. 

But  Alexander  was  not  thinking  about  his 
work.  After  the  fourth  night  out,  when  his  will 
suddenly  softened  under  his  hands,  he  had  been 
continually  hammering  away  at  himself.  More 
and  more  often,  when  he  first  wakened  in  the 
morning  or  when  he  stepped  into  a  warm  place 
after  being  chilled  on  the  deck,  he  felt  a  sudden 
painful  delight  at  being  nearer  another  shore. 
Sometimes  when  he  was  most  despondent, 
when  he  thought  himself  worn  out  with  this 
struggle,  in  a  flash  he  was  free  of  it  and  leaped 
into  an  overwhelming  consciousness  of  himself. 


. 

ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

On  the  instant  he  felt  that  marvelous  return 
of  the  impetuousness,  the  intense  excitement, 
the  increasing  expectancy  of  youth. 


CHAPTER 
VI 

THE  last  two  days  of  the  voyage  Bartley  found 
almost  intolerable.  The  stop  at  Queenstown, 
the  tedious  passage  up  the  Mersey,  were  things 
that  he  noted  dimly  through  his  growing  impa- 
tience. He  had  planned  to  stop  in  Liverpool; 
but,  instead,  he  took  the  boat  train  for  London. 

9 

Emerging  at  Euston  at  half -past  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  Alexander  had  his  luggage 
sent  to  the  Savoy  and  drove  at  once  to  Bedford 
Square.  When  Marie  met  him  at  the  door, 
even  her  strong  sense  of  the  proprieties  could 
not  restrain  her  surprise  and  delight.  She 
blushed  and  smiled  and  fumbled  his  card  in  her 
confusion  before  she  ran  upstairs.  Alexander 
paced  up  and  down  the  hallway,  buttoning  and 
unbuttoning  his  overcoat,  until  she  returned 
and  took  him  up  to  Hilda's  living-room.  The 
100 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

room  was  empty  when  he  entered.  A  coal  fire 
was  crackling  in  the  grate  and  the  lamps  were 
lit,  for  it  was  already  beginning  to  grow  dark 
outside.  Alexander  did  not  sit  down.  He  stood 
his  ground  over  by  the  windows  until  Hilda 
came  in.  She  called  his  name  on  the  threshold, 
but  in  her  swift  flight  across  the  room  she  felt 
a  change  in  him  and  caught  herself  up  so  deftly 
that  he  could  not  tell  just  when  she  did  it.  She 
merely  brushed  his  cheek  with  her  lips  and  put 
a  hand  lightly  and  joyously  on  either  shoulder. 

"Oh,  what  a  grand  thing  to  happen  on  a  raw 
day!  I  felt  it  in  my  bones  when  I  woke  this 
morning  that  something  splendid  was  going  to 
turn  up.  I  thought  it  might  be  Sister  Kate 
or  Cousin  Mike  would  be  happening  along.  I 
never  dreamed  it  would  be  you,  Bartley.  But 
why  do  you  let  me  chatter  on  like  this?  Come 
over  to  the  fire;  you're  chilled  through." 

She  pushed  him  toward  the  big  chair  by  the 
fire,  and  sat  down  on  a  stool  at  the  opposite 
101 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

side  of  the  hearth,  her  knees  drawn  up  to  her 
chin,  laughing  like  a  happy  little  girl. 

"When  did  you  come,  Bartley,  and  how  did 
it  happen?  You  have  n't  spoken  a  word." 

"I  got  in  about  ten  minutes  ago.  I  landed  at 
Liverpool  this  morning  and  came  down  on  the 
boat  train." 

Alexander  leaned  forward  and  warmed  his 
hands  before  the  blaze.  Hilda  watched  him 
with  perplexity. 

"There's  something  troubling  you,  Bartley. 
What  is  it?" 

Bartley  bent  lower  over  the  fire.  "It's  the 
whole  thing  that  troubles  me,  Hilda.  You 
and  I." 

Hilda  took  a  quick,  soft  breath.    She  looked    . 
at  his  heavy  shoulders  and    big,  determined 
head,  thrust  forward  like  a  catapult  in  leash. 

"What  about  us,  Bartley?"  she  asked  in  a 
thin  voice. 

He  locked  and  unlocked  his  hands  over  the 
102 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

grate  and  spread  his  fingers  close  to  the  bluish 
flame,  while  the  coals  crackled  and  the  clock 
ticked  and  a  street  vendor  began  to  call  under 
the  window.  At  last  Alexander  brought  out  one 
word :  — 

"Everything!" 

Hilda  was  pale  by  this  time,  and  her  eyes 
were  wide  with  fright.  She  looked  about  des- 
perately from  Bartley  to  the  door,  then  to  the 
windows,  and  back  again  to  Bartley.  She  rose 
uncertainly,  touched  his  hair  with  her  hand, 
then  sank  back  upon  her  stool. 

"I'll  do  anything  you  wish  me  to,  Bartley," 
she  said  tremulously.  "I  can't  stand  seeing 
you  miserable." 

"I  can't  live  with  myself  any  longer,"  he 
answered  roughly. 

He  rose  and  pushed  the  chair  behind  him 
and  began  to  walk  miserably  about  the  room, 
seeming  to  find  it  too  small  for  him.  He  pulled 
up  a  window  as  if  the  air  were  heavy. 
103 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Hilda  watched  him  from  her  corner,  trem- 
bling and  scarcely  breathing,  dark  shadows 
growing  about  her  eyes. 

"It  ...  it  has  n't  always  made  you  miser- 
able, has  it?"  Her  eyelids  fell  and  her  lips 
quivered. 

"Always.  But  it's  worse  now.  It's  unbear- 
able. It  tortures  me  every  minute." 

"But  why  now?"  she  asked  piteously,  wring- 
ing her  hands. 

He  ignored  her  question.  "I  am  not  a  man 
who  can  live  two  lives,"  he  went  on  feverishly. 
"Each  life  spoils  the  other.  I  get  nothing  but 
misery  out  of  either.  The  world  is  all  there, 
just  as  it  used  to  be,  but  I  can't  get  at  it  any 
more.  There  is  this  deception  between  me  and  ' 
everything." 

At  that  word  "deception,"  spoken  with  such 
self -contempt,  the  color  flashed  back  into  Hil- 
da's face  as  suddenly  as  if  she  had  been  struck 
by  a  whiplash.   She  bit  her  lip  and  looked 
104 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

down  at  her  hands,  which  were  clasped  tightly 
in  front  of  her. 

"  Could  you  —  could  you  sit  down  and  talk 
about  it  quietly,  Hartley,  as  if  I  were  a  friend, 
and  not  some  one  who  had  to  be  defied?" 

He  dropped  back  heavily  into  his  chair  by 
the  fire.  "It  was  myself  I  was  defying,  Hilda. 
I  have  thought  about  it  until  I  am  worn  out." 

He  looked  at  her  and  his  haggard  face  soft- 
ened. He  put  out  his  hand  toward  her  as  he 
looked  away  again  into  the  fire. 

She  crept  across  to  him,  drawing  her  stool 
after  her.  "When  did  you  first  begin  to  feel 
like  this,  Bartley?" 

"After  the  very  first.  The  first  was  —  sort 
of  in  play,  was  n't  it?" 

Hilda's  face  quivered,  but  she  whispered: 
"Yes,  I  think  it  must  have  been.  But  why 
did  n't  you  tell  me  when  you  were  here  in  the 
summer?" 

Alexander  groaned.  "I  meant  to,  but  some- 
105 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

how  I  could  n't.  We  had  only  a  few  days,  and 
your  new  play  was  just  on,  and  you  were  so 
happy." 

"Yes,  I  was  happy,  was  n't  I?"  She  pressed 
his  hand  gently  in  gratitude.  "Weren't  you 
happy  then,  at  all?" 

She  closed  her  eyes  and  took  a  deep  breath, 
as  if  to  draw  in  again  the  fragrance  of  those 
days.  Something  of  their  troubling  sweetness 
came  back  to  Alexander,  too.  He  moved  un- 
easily and  his  chair  creaked. 

"Yes,  I  was  then.  You  know.  But  after- 
ward .  .  ." 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  hurried,  pulling  her  hand 
gently  away  from  him.  Presently  it  stole  back 
to  his  coat  sleeve.    "Please  tell  me  one  thing,  • 
Bartley.   At  least,  tell  me  that  you  believe  I 
thought  I  was  making  you  happy." 

His  hand  shut  down  quickly  over  the  ques- 
tioning fingers  on  his  sleeves.    "Yes,  Hilda;  I 
know  that,"  he  said  simply. 
106 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

She  leaned  her  head  against  his  arm  and 
spoke  softly :  — 

"You  see,  my  mistake  was  in  wanting  you  to 
have  everything.  I  wanted  you  to  eat  all  the 
cakes  and  have  them,  too.  I  somehow  believed 
that  I  could  take  all  the  bad  consequences  for 
you.  I  wanted  you  always  to  be  happy  and 
handsome  and  successful  —  to  have  all  the 
things  that  a  great  man  ought  to  have,  and, 
once  in  a  way,  the  careless  holidays  that  great 
men  are  not  permitted." 

Bartley  gave  a  bitter  little  laugh,  and  Hilda 
looked  up  and  read  in  the  deepening  lines  of 
his  face  that  youth  and  Bartley  would  not 
much  longer  struggle  together. 

"I  understand,  Bartley.  I  was  wrong.  But 
I  did  n't  know.  You've  only  to  tell  me  now. 
What  must  I  do  that  I've  not  done,  or  what 
must  I  not  do?"  She  listened  intently,  but  she 
heard  nothing  but  the  creaking  of  his  chair. 
"You  want  me  to  say  it?"  she  whispered. 
107 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"You  want  to  tell  me  that  you  can  only  see  me 
like  this,  as  old  friends  do,  or  out  in  the  world 
among  people?  I  can  do  that." 

"I  can't,"  he  said  heavily. 

Hilda  shivered  and  sat  still.  Bartley  leaned 
his  head  in  his  hands  and  spoke  through  his 
teeth.  "It's  got  to  be  a  clean  break,  Hilda. 
I  can't  see  you  at  all,  anywhere.  What  I  mean 
is  that  I  want  you  to  promise  never  to  see  me 
again,  no  matter  how  often  I  come,  no  matter 
how  hard  I  beg." 

Hilda  sprang  up  like  a  flame.  She  stood  over 
him  with  her  hands  clenched  at  her  side,  her 
body  rigid. 

" No! "  she  gasped.  " It's  too  late  to  ask 
that.  Do  you  hear  me,  Bartley?  It 's  too  late.  . 
I  won't  promise.  It's  abominable  of  you  to 
ask  me.  Keep  away  if  you  wish;  when  have 
I  ever  followed  you?  But,  if  you  come  to  me, 
I  '11  do  as  I  see  fit.  The  shamefulness  of  your 
asking  me  to  do  that!  If  you  come  to  me, 
108 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

I '11  do  as  I  see  fit.  Do  you  understand?  Bart- 
ley,  you're  cowardly! " 

Alexander  rose  and  shook  himself  angrily. 
"Yes,  I  know  I 'm  cowardly.  I 'm  afraid  of  my- 
self. I  don't  trust  myself  any  more.  I  carried 
it  all  lightly  enough  at  first,  but  now  I  don't 
dare  trifle  with  it.  It's  getting  the  better  of 
me.  It's  different  now.  I'm  growing  older, 
and  you've  got  my  young  self  here  with 
you.  It 's  through  him  that  I  've  come  to  wish 
for  you  all  and  all  the  time."  He  took  her 
roughly  in  his  arms.  "Do  you  know  what  I 
mean?  " 

Hilda  held  her  face  back  from  him  and  began 
to  cry  bitterly.  "Oh,  Bartley,  what  am  I  to  do? 
Why  did  n't  you  let  me  be  angry  with  you? 
You  ask  me  to  stay  away  from  you  because  you 
want  me!  And  I've  got  nobody  but  you.  I 
will  do  anything  you  say  —  but  that!  I  will 
ask  the  least  imaginable,  but  I  must  have 
something! " 

109 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Bartley  turned  away  and  sank  down  in  his 
chair  again.  Hilda  sat  on  the  arm  of  it  and  put 
her  hands  lightly  on  his  shoulders. 

"Just  something,  Bartley.  I  must  have  you 
to  think  of  through  the  months  and  months  of 
loneliness.  I  must  see  you.  I  must  know  about 
you.  The  sight  of  you,  Bartley,  to  see  you  liv- 
ing and  happy  and  successful  —  can  I  never 
make  you  understand  what  that  means  to  me?  " 
She  pressed  his  shoulders  gently.  "You  see, 
loving  some  one  as  I  love  you  makes  the  whole 
world  different.  If  I  'd  met  you  later,  if  I  had  n't 
loved  you  so  well  —  but  that  *s  all  over,  long 
ago.  Then  came  all  those  years  without  you, 
lonely  and  hurt  and  discouraged;  those  decent 
young  fellows  and  poor  Mac,  and  me  never 
heeding  —  hard  as  a  steel  spring.  And  then 
you  came  back,  not  caring  very  much,  but  it 
made  no  difference." 

She  slid  to  the  floor  beside  him,  as  if  she  were 
too  tired  to  sit  up  any  longer.  Bartley  bent 
110 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

over  and  took  her  in  his  arms,  kissing  her  mouth 
and  her  wet,  tired  eyes. 

"Don't  cry,  don't  cry,"  he  whispered. 
"We've  tortured  each  other  enough  for  to- 
night. Forget  everything  except  that  I  am 
here." 

"I  think  I  have  forgotten  everything  but 
that  already,"  she  murmured.  "Ah,  your  dear 
arms!" 


CHAPTER 
VII 

DURING  the  fortnight  that  Alexander  was  in 
London  he  drove  himself  hard.  He  got  through 
a  great  deal  of  personal  business  and  saw  a  great 
many  men  who  were  doing  interesting  things 
in  his  own  profession.  He  disliked  to  think  of 
his  visits  to  London  as  holidays,  and  when  he 
was  there  he  worked  even  harder  than  he  did 
at  home. 

The  day  before  his  departure  for  Liverpool 
was  a  singularly  fine  one.  The  thick  air  had 
cleared  overnight  in  a  strong  wind  which 
brought  in  a  golden  dawn  and  then  fell  off  to  a 
fresh  breeze.  When  Bartley  looked  out  of  his 
windows  from  the  Savoy,  the  river  was  flashing 
silver  and  the  gray  stone  along  the  Embank- 
ment was  bathed  in  bright,  clear  sunshine. 
London  had  wakened  to  life  after  three  weeks 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

of  cold  and  sodden  rain.  Bartley  breakfasted 
hurriedly  and  went  over  his  mail  while  the  hotel 
valet  packed  his  trunks.  Then  he  paid  his  ac- 
count and  walked  rapidly  down  the  Strand  past 
Charing  Cross  Station.  His  spirits  rose  with 
every  step,  and  when  he  reached  Trafalgar 
Square,  blazing  in  the  sun,  with  its  fountains 
playing  and  its  column  reaching  up  into  the 
bright  air,  he  signaled  to  a  hansom,  and,  before 
he  knew  what  he  was  about,  told  the  driver  to 
go  to  Bedford  Square  by  way  of  the  British 
Museum. 

When  he  reached  Hilda's  apartment  she  met 
him,  fresh  as  the  morning  itself.  Her  rooms 
were  flooded  with  sunshine  and  full  of  the 
flowers  he  had  been  sending  her.  She  would 
never  let  him  give  her  anything  else. 

"Are  you  busy  this  morning,  Hilda?"  he 
asked  as  he  sat  down,  his  hat  and  gloves  in  his 
hand. 

"Very.  I've  been  up  and  about  three  hours, 
113 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

working  at  my  part.  We  open  in  February, 
you  know." 

"Well,  then  you've  worked  enough.  And  so 
have  I.  I've  seen  all  my  men,  my  packing  is 
done,  and  I  go  up  to  Liverpool  this  evening. 
But  this  morning  we  are  going  to  have  a  holi- 
day. What  do  you  say  to  a  drive  out  to  Kew 
and  Richmond?  You  may  not  get  another  day 
like  this  all  winter.  It 's  like  a  fine  April  day  at 
home.  May  I  use  your  telephone?  I  want  to 
order  the  carriage." 

"Oh,  how  jolly!  There,  sit  down  at  the 
desk.  And  while  you  are  telephoning  I  '11  change 
my  dress.  I  shan't  be  long.  All  the  morning 
papers  are  on  the  table." 

Hilda  was  back  in  a  few  moments  wearing 
a  long  gray  squirrel  coat  and  a  broad  fur  hat. 

Bartley  rose  and  inspected  her.  "Why  don't 
you  wear  some  of  those  pink  roses?"  he  asked. 

"But  they  came  only  this  morning,  and  they 
have  not  even  begun  to  open.  I  was  saving 
114 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

them.  I  am  so  unconsciously  thrifty !"  She 
laughed  as  she  looked  about  the  room.  "  You  've 
been  sending  me  far  too  many  flowers,  Bartley. 
New  ones  every  day.  That's  too  often;  though 
I  do  love  to  open  the  boxes,  and  I  take  good 
care  of  them." 

"Why  won't  you  let  me  send  you  any  of 
those  jade  or  ivory  things  you  are  so  fond  of? 
Or  pictures  ?  I  know  a  good  deal  about  pictures." 

Hilda  shook  her  large  hat  as  she  drew  the 
roses  out  of  the  tall  glass.  "No,  there  are  some 
things  you  can't  do.  There's  the  carriage. 
Will  you  button  my  gloves  for  me?" 

Bartley  took  her  wrist  and  began  to  button 
the  long  gray  suede  glove.  "How  gay  your 
eyes  are  this  morning,  Hilda." 

"That's  because  I've  been  studying.  It 
always  stirs  me  up  a  little." 

He  pushed  the  top  of  the  glove  up  slowly. 
"When  did  you  learn  to  take  hold  of  your  parts 
like  that?" 

115 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"  When  I  had  nothing  else  to  think  of.  Come, 
the  carriage  is  waiting.  What  a  shocking  while 
you  take." 

"I'm  in  no  hurry.  We've  plenty  of  time." 

They  found  all  London  abroad.  Piccadilly 
was  a  stream  of  rapidly  moving  carriages,  from 
which  flashed  furs  and  flowers  and  bright  win- 
ter costumes.  The  metal  trappings  of  the  har- 
nesses shone  dazzlingly,  and  the  wheels  were 
revolving  disks  that  threw  off  rays  of  light. 
The  parks  were  full  of  children  and  nurse- 
maids and  joyful  dogs  that  leaped  and  yelped 
and  scratched  up  the  brown  earth  with  their 
paws. 

"I'm  not  going  until  to-morrow,  you  know," 
Bartley  announced  suddenly.  "I'll  cut  off  a 
day  in  Liverpool.  I  have  n't  felt  so  jolly  this 
long  while." 

Hilda  looked  up  with  a  smile  which  she  tried 
not  to  make  too  glad.    "I  think  people  were 
meant  to  be  happy,  a  little,"  she  said. 
116 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

They  had  lunch  at  Richmond  and  then 
walked  to  Twickenham,  where  they  had  sent 
the  carriage.  They  drove  back,  with  a  glorious 
sunset  behind  them,  toward  the  distant  gold- 
washed  city.  It  was  one  of  those  rare  after- 
noons when  all  the  thickness  and  shadow  of 
London  are  changed  to  a  kind  of  shining,  puls- 
ing, special  atmosphere;  when  the  smoky  vapors 
become  fluttering  golden  clouds,  nacreous  veils 
of  pink  and  amber;  when  all  that  bleakness  of 
gray  stone  and  dullness  of  dirty  brick  trembles 
in  aureate  light,  and  all  the  roofs  and  spires, 
and  one  great  dome,  are  floated  in  golden  haze. 
On  such  rare  afternoons  the  ugliest  of  cities 
becomes  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  prosaic 
becomes  the  most  poetic,  and  months  of  sod- 
den days  are  offset  by  a  moment  of  miracle. 

"It's  like  that  with  us  Londoners,  too," 

Hilda  was   saying.    "Everything  is  awfully 

grim  and  cheerless,  our  weather  and  our  houses 

and  our  ways  of  amusing  ourselves.   But  we 

117 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

can  be  happier  than  anybody.  We  can  go  mad 
with  joy,  as  the  people  do  out  in  the  fields  on  a 
fine  Whitsunday.  We  make  the  most  of  our 
moment." 

She  thrust  her  little  chin  out  defiantly  over 
her  gray  fur  collar,  and  Bartley  looked  down 
at  her  and  laughed. 

"You  are  a  plucky  one,  you."  He  patted  her 
glove  with  his  hand.  "Yes,  you  are  a  plucky 
one." 

Hilda  sighed.  "No,  I'm  not.  Not  about 
some  things,  at  any  rate.  It  does  n't  take  pluck 
to  fight  for  one's  moment,  but  it  takes  pluck  to 
go  without  —  a  lot.  More  than  I  have.  I  can't 
help  it,"  she  added  fiercely. 

After  miles  of  outlying  streets  and  little 
gloomy  houses,  they  reached  London  itself,  red 
and  roaring  and  murky,  with  a  thick  dampness 
coming  up  from  the  river,  that  betokened  fog 
again  to-morrow.  The  streets  were  full  of 
people  who  had  worked  indoors  all  through  the 
118 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

priceless  day  and  had  now  come  hungrily  out 
to  drink  the  muddy  lees  of  it.  They  stood  in 
long  black  lines,  waiting  before  the  pit  en- 
trances of  the  theatres  —  short-coated  boys, 
and  girls  in  sailor  hats,  all  shivering  and  chat- 
ting gayly.  There  was  a  blurred  rhythm  in  all 
the  dull  city  noises  —  in  the  clatter  of  the  cab 
horses  and  the  rumbling  of  the  busses,  in 
the  street  calls,  and  in  the  undulating  tramp, 
tramp  of  the  crowd.  It  was  like  the  deep  vibra- 
tion of  some  vast  underground  machinery,  and 
like  the  muffled  pulsations  of  millions  of  human 
hearts. 

"Seems  good  to  get  back,  does  n't  it?  "  Bart- 
ley  whispered,  as  they  drove  from  Bayswater 
Road  into  Oxford  Street.  "London  always 
makes  me  want  to  live  more  than  any  other 
city  in  the  world.  You  remember  our  priestess 
mummy  over  in  the  mummy-room,  and  how  we 
used  to  long  to  go  and  bring  her  out  on  nights 
like  this?  Three  thousand  years!  Ugh!" 
119 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"All  the  same,  I  believe  she  used  to  feel  it 
when  we  stood  there  and  watched  her  and 
wished  her  well.  I  believe  she  used  to  remem- 
ber," Hilda  said  thoughtfully. 

"I  hope  so.  Now  let's  go  to  some  awfully 
jolly  place  for  dinner  before  we  go  home.  I 
could  eat  all  the  dinners  there  are  in  London  to- 
night. Where  shall  I  tell  the  driver?  The  Pic- 
cadilly Restaurant?  The  music's  good  there." 

"There  are  too  many  people  there  whom  one 
knows.  Why  not  that  little  French  place  in 
Soho,  where  we  went  so  often  when  you  were 
here  in  the  summer?  I  love  it,  and  I  've  never 
been  there  with  any  one  but  you.  Sometimes  I 
go  by  myself,  when  I  am  particularly  lonely." 

"Very  well,  the  sole's  good  there.  How 
many  street  pianos  there  are  about  to-night! 
The  fine  weather  must  have  thawed  them  out. 
We've  had  five  miles  of  'II  Trovatore*  now. 
They  always  make  me  feel  jaunty.  Are  you 
comfy,  and  not  too  tired?" 
120 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"I'm  not  tired  at  all.  I  was  just  wondering 
how  people  can  ever  die.  Why  did  you  remind 
me  of  the  mummy?  Life  seems  the  strongest 
and  most  indestructible  thing  in  the  world.  Do 
you  really  believe  that  all  those  people  rushing 
about  down  there,  going  to  good  dinners  and 
clubs  and  theatres,  will  be  dead  some  day,  and 
not  care  about  anything?  I  don't  believe  it, 
and  I  know  I  shan't  die,  ever!  You  see,  I  feel 
too  —  too  powerful ! " 

The  carriage  stopped.  Bartley  sprang  out 
and  swung  her  quickly  to  the  pavement.  As  he 
lifted  her  in  his  two  hands  he  whispered:  "You 
are  —  powerful ! " 


CHAPTER 

vm 

THE  last  rehearsal  was  over,  a  tedious  dress 
rehearsal  which  had  lasted  all  day  and  ex- 
hausted the  patience  of  every  one  who  had  to 
do  with  it.  When  Hilda  had  dressed  for  the 
street  and  came  out  of  her  dressing-room,  she 
found  Hugh  MacConnell  waiting  for  her  in  the 
corridor. 

"The  fog's  thicker  than  ever,  Hilda.  There 
have  been  a  great  many  accidents  to-day.  It 's 
positively  unsafe  for  you  to  be  out  alone.  Will 
you  let  me  take  you  home?  " 

"How  good  of  you,  Mac.  If  you  are  going 
with  me,  I  think  I  'd  rather  walk.  I  Ve  had  no 
exercise  to-day,  and  all  this  has  made  me 
nervous." 

"I  should  n't  wonder,"  said  MacConnell 
dryly.  Hilda  pulled  down  her  veil  and  they 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

stepped  out  into  the  thick  brown  wash  that 
submerged  St.  Martin's  Lane.  MacConnell 
took  her  hand  and  tucked  it  snugly  under 
his  arm.  "I'm  sorry  I  was  such  a  savage.  I 
hope  you  did  n't  think  I  made  an  ass  of  my- 
self." 

"Not  a  bit  of  it.  I  don't  wonder  you  were 
peppery.  Those  things  are  awfully  trying. 
How  do  you  think  it's  going?" 

"Magnificently.  That's  why  I  got  so  stirred 
up.  We  are  going  to  hear  from  this,  both  of 
us.  And  that  reminds  me;  I've  got  news  for 
you.  They  are  going  to  begin  repairs  on  the 
theatre  about  the  middle  of  March,  and  we  are 
to  run  over  to  New  York  for  six  weeks.  Ben- 
nett told  me  yesterday  that  it  was  decided." 

Hilda  looked  up  delightedly  at  the  tall  gray 
figure  beside  her.  He  was  the  only  thing  she 
could  see,  for  they  were  moving  through  a  dense 
opaqueness,  as  if  they  were  walking  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  ocean. 

128 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"Oh,  Mac,  how  glad  I  am!  And  they  love 
your  things  over  there,  don't  they?" 

"Shall  you  be  glad  for  —  any  other  reason, 
Hilda?" 

MacConnell  put  his  hand  in  front  of  her  to 
ward  off  some  dark  object.  It  proved  to  be 
only  a  lamp-post,  and  they  beat  in  farther 
from  the  edge  of  the  pavement. 

"What  do  you  mean,  Mac?"  Hilda  asked 
nervously. 

"I  was  just  thinking  there  might  be  people 
over  there  you  'd  be  glad  to  see,"  he  brought  out 
awkwardly.  Hilda  said  nothing,  and  as  they 
walked  on  MacConnell  spoke  again,  apologet- 
ically: "I  hope  you  don't  mind  my  knowing 
about  it,  Hilda.  Don't  stiffen  up  like  that.  No 
one  else  knows,  and  I  did  n't  try  to  find  out 
anything.  I  felt  it,  even  before  I  knew  who 
he  was.  I  knew  there  was  somebody,  and  that 
it  was  n't  I." 

They  crossed  Oxford  Street  in  silence,  feeling 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

their  way.  The  busses  had  stopped  running 
and  the  cab-drivers  were  leading  their  horses. 
When  they  reached  the  other  side,  MacConnell 
said  suddenly,  "I  hope  you  are  happy." 

"Terribly,  dangerously  happy,  Mac,"  — 
Hilda  spoke  quietly,  pressing  the  rough  sleeve 
of  his  greatcoat  with  her  gloved  hand. 

"You've  always  thought  me  too  old  for  you, 
Hilda,  —  oh,  of  course  you've  never  said  just 
that,  —  and  here  this  fellow  is  not  more  than 
eight  years  younger  than  I.  I've  always  felt 
that  if  I  could  get  out  of  my  old  case  I  might 
win  you  yet.  It's  a  fine,  brave  youth  I  carry 
inside  me,  only  he'll  never  be  seen." 

"Nonsense,  Mac.  That  has  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  It 's  because  you  seem  too  close  to  me, 
too  much  my  own  kind.  It  would  be  like  mar- 
rying Cousin  Mike,  almost.  I  really  tried  to 
care  as  you  wanted  me  to,  away  back  in  the 
beginning." 

"Well,  here  we  are,  turning  out  of  the 
125 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Square.  You  are  not  angry  with  me,  Hilda? 
Thank  you  for  this  walk,  my  dear.  Go  in  and 
get  dry  things  on  at  once.  You'll  be  having  a 
great  night  to-morrow." 

She  put  out  her  hand.  "Thank  you,  Mac, 
for  everything.  Good-night." 

MacConnell  trudged  off  through  the  fog, 
and  she  went  slowly  upstairs.  Her  slippers  and 
dressing  gown  were  waiting  for  her  before  the 
fire.  "I  shall  certainly  see  him  in  New  York. 
He  will  see  by  the  papers  that  we  are  coming. 
Perhaps  he  knows  it  already,"  Hilda  kept 
thinking  as  she  undressed.  "Perhaps  he  will 
be  at  the  dock.  No,  scarcely  that;  but  I  may 
meet  him  in  the  street  even  before  he  comes 
to  see  me."  Marie  placed  the  tea-table  by 
the  fire  and  brought  Hilda  her  letters.  She 
looked  them  over,  and  started  as  she  came  to 
one  in  'a  handwriting  that  she  did  not  often 
see;  Alexander  had  written  to  her  only  twice 
before,  and  he  did  not  allow  her  to  write  to 
126 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

him  at  all.    "Thank  you,  Marie.    You  may 
go  now." 

Hilda  sat  down  by  the  table  with  the  letter 
in  her  hand,  still  unopened.  She  looked  at  it 
intently,  turned  it  over,  and  felt  its  thickness 
with  her  fingers.  She  believed  that  she  some- 
times had  a  kind  of  second-sight  about  letters, 
and  could  tell  before  she  read  them  whether 
they  brought  good  or  evil  tidings.  She  put 
this  one  down  on  the  table  in  front  of  her  while 
she  poured  her  tea.  At  last,  with  a  little  shiver 
of  expectancy,  she  tore  open  the  envelope 
and  read:  — 

BOSTON.  February 

MY  DEAR  HILDA:  — 

It  is  after  twelve  o'clock.  Every  one  else  is 
in  bed  and  I  am  sitting  alone  in  my  study.  I 
have  been  happier  in  this  room  than  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  Happiness  like  that  makes 
one  insolent.  I  used  to  think  these  four  walls 
127 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

could  stand  against  anything.  And  now  I 
scarcely  know  myself  here.  Now  I  know  that 
no  one  can  build  his  security  upon  the  noble- 
ness of  another  person.  Two  people,  when  they 
love  each  other,  grow  alike  in  their  tastes  and 
habits  and  pride,  but  their  moral  natures 
(whatever  we  may  mean  by  that  canting  ex- 
pression) are  never  welded.  The  base  one  goes 
on  being  base,  and  the  noble  one  noble,  to  the 
end. 

The  last  week  has  been  a  bad  one;  I  have 
been  realizing  how  things  used  to  be  with  me. 
Sometimes  I  get  used  to  being  dead  inside,  but 
lately  it  has  been  as  if  a  window  beside  me  had 
suddenly  opened,  and  as  if  all  the  smells  of 
spring  blew  in  to  me.  There  is  a  garden  out 
there,  with  stars  overhead,  where  I  used  to 
walk  at  night  when  I  had  a  single  purpose  and 
a  single  heart.  I  can  remember  how  I  used  to 
feel  there,  how  beautiful  everything  about  me 
was,  and  what  life  and  power  and  freedom  I 
128 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

felt  in  myself.  When  the  window  opens  I  know 
exactly  how  it  would  feel  to  be  out  there.  But 
that  garden  is  closed  to  me.  How  is  it,  I  ask 
myself,  that  everything  can  be  so  different  with 
me  when  nothing  here  has  changed?  I  am  in 
my  own  house,  in  my  own  study,  in  the  midst 
of  all  these  quiet  streets  where  my  friends  live. 
They  are  all  safe  and  at  peace  with  themselves. 
But  I  am  never  at  peace.  I  feel  always  on  the 
edge  of  danger  and  change. 

I  keep  remembering  locoed  horses  I  used  to 
see  on  the  range  when  I  was  a  boy.  They 
changed  like  that.  We  used  to  catch  them  and 
put  them  up  in  the  corral,  and  they  developed 
great  cunning.  They  would  pretend  to  eat 
their  oats  like  the  other  horses,  but  we  knew 
they  were  always  scheming  to  get  back  at  the 
loco. 

It  seems  that  a  man  is  meant  to  live  only  one 
life  in  this  world.  When  he  tries  to  live  a  sec- 
ond, he  develops  another  nature.  I  feel  as  if  a 
129 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

second  man  had  been  grafted  into  me.  At  first 
he  seemed  only  a  pleasure-loving  simpleton, 
of  whose  company  I  was  rather  ashamed,  and 
whom  I  used  to  hide  under  my  coat  when 
I  walked  the  Embankment,  in  London.  But 
now  he  is  strong  and  sullen,  and  he  is  fighting 
for  his  life  at  the  cost  of  mine.  That  is  his  one 
activity:  to  grow  strong.  No  creature  ever 
wanted  so  much  to  live.  Eventually,  I  suppose, 
he  will  absorb  me  altogether.  Believe  me,  you 
will  hate  me  then. 

And  what  have  you  to  do,  Hilda,  with  this 
ugly  story?  Nothing  at  all.  The  little  boy 
drank  of  the  prettiest  brook  in  the  forest  and 
he  became  a  stag.  I  write  all  this  because  I  can 
never  tell  it  to  you,  and  because  it  seems  as  if  I 
could  not  keep  silent  any  longer.  And  because 
I  suffer,  Hilda.  If  any  one  I  loved  suffered  like 
this,  I'd  want  to  know  it.  Help  me,  Hilda! 

B.  A. 


CHAPTER 
IX 

ON  the  last  Saturday  in  April,  the  New  York 
"Times"  published  an  account  of  the  strike 
complications  which  were  delaying  Alexander's 
New  Jersey  bridge,  and  stated  that  the  en- 
gineer himself  was  in  town  and  at  his  office 
on  West  Tenth  Street. 

On  Sunday,  the  day  after  this  notice  ap- 
peared, Alexander  worked  all  day  at  his  Tenth 
Street  rooms.  His  business  often  called  him 
to  New  York,  and  he  had  kept  an  apartment 
there  for  years,  subletting  it  when  he  went 
abroad  for  any  length  of  time.  Besides  his 
sleeping-room  and  bath,  there  was  a  large 
room,  formerly  a  painter's  studio,  which  he 
used  as  a  study  and  office.  It  was  furnished 
with  the  cast-off  possessions  of  his  bachelor 
days  and  with  odd  things  which  he  sheltered 
131 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

for  friends  of  his  who  followed  itinerant  and 
more  or  less  artistic  callings.  Over  the  fire- 
place there  was  a  large  old-fashioned  gilt  mir- 
ror. Alexander's  big  work-table  stood  in  front 
of  one  of  the  three  windows,  and  above  the 
couch  hung  the  one  picture  in  the  room,  a 
big  canvas  of  charming  color  and  spirit,  a 
study  of  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  in  early 
spring,  painted  in  his  youth  by  a  man  who  had 
since  become  a  portrait-painter  of  interna- 
tional renown.  He  had  done  it  for  Alexander 
when  they  were  students  together  in  Paris. 

Sunday  was  a  cold,  raw  day  and  a  fine  rain 
fell  continuously.  When  Alexander  came  back 
from  dinner  he  put  more  wood  on  his  fire, 
made  himself  comfortable,  and  settled  down  at 
his  desk,  where  he  began  checking  over  es- 
timate sheets.  It  was  after  nine  o'clock  and  he 
was  lighting  a  second  pipe,  when  he  thought  he 
heard  a  sound  at  his  door.  He  started  and  list- 
132 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

ened,  holding  the  burning  match  in  his  hand; 
again  he  heard  the  same  sound,  like  a  firm, 
light  tap.  He  rose  and  crossed  the  room  quickly. 
When  he  threw  open  the  door  he  recognized  the 
figure  that  shrank  back  into  the  bare,  dimly  lit 
hallway.  He  stood  for  a  moment  in  awkward 
constraint,  his  pipe  in  his  hand. 

"Come  in,"  he  said  to  Hilda  at  last,  and 
closed  the  door  behind  her.  He  pointed  to  a 
chair  by  the  fire  and  went  back  to  his  work- 
table.  "Won't  you  sit  down?" 

He  was  standing  behind  the  table,  turning 
over  a  pile  of  blueprints  nervously.  The  yellow 
light  from  the  student's  lamp  fell  on  his  hands 
and  the  purple  sleeves  of  his  velvet  smoking- 
jacket,  but  his  flushed  face  and  big,  hard  head 
were  in  the  shadow.  There  was  something 
about  him  that  made  Hilda  wish  herself  at  her 
hotel  again,  in  the  street  below,  anywhere  but 
where  she  was. 

"Of  course  I  know,  Hartley,"  she  said  at 
133 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

last,  "that  after  this  you  won't  owe  me  the 
least  consideration.  But  we  sail  on  Tuesday. 
I  saw  that  interview  in  the  paper  yesterday, 
telling  where  you  were,  and  I  thought  I  had 
to  see  you.  That's  all.  Good-night;  I'm  go- 
ing now."  She  turned  and  her  hand  closed  on 
the  door-knob. 

Alexander  hurried  toward  her  and  took  her 
gently  by  the  arm.  "Sit  down,  Hilda;  you're 
wet  through.  Let  me  take  off  your  coat  — 
and  your  boots;  they're  oozing  water."  He 
knelt  down  and  began  to  unlace  her  shoes, 
while  Hilda  shrank  into  the  chair.  "Here,  put 
your  feet  on  this  stool.  You  don't  mean  to  say 
you  walked  down  —  and  without  overshoes!" 

Hilda  hid  her  face  in  her  hands.  "I  was 
afraid  to  take  a  cab.  Can't  you  see,  Bartley, 
that  I  'm  terribly  frightened?  I  Ve  been  through 
this  a  hundred  times  to-day.  Don't  be  any 
more  angry  than  you  can  help.  I  was  all  right 
until  I  knew  you  were  in  town.  If  you  'd  sent 
134 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

me  a  note,  or  telephoned  me,  or  anything!  But 
you  won't  let  me  write  to  you,  and  I  had  to  see 
you  after  that  letter,  that  terrible  letter  you 
wrote  me  when  you  got  home." 

Alexander  faced  her,  resting  his  arm  on  the 
mantel  behind  him,  and  began  to  brush  the 
sleeve  of  his  jacket.  "Is  this  the  way  you 
mean  to  answer  it,  Hilda?"  he  asked  un- 
steadily. 

She  was  afraid  to  look  up  at  him.  "Did  n't 
—  did  n't  you  mean  even  to  say  good-by  to 
me,  Bartley?  Did  you  mean  just  to  —  quit 
me?  "  she  asked.  "I  came  to  tell  you  that  I'm 
willing  to  do  as  you  asked  me.  But  it 's  no  use 
talking  about  that  now.  Give  me  my  things, 
please."  She  put  her  hand  out  toward  the 
fender. 

Alexander  sat  down  on  the  arm  of  her  chair. 
"Did  you  think  I  had  forgotten  you  were  in 
town,  Hilda?  Do  you  think  I  kept  away  by 

accident?  Did  you  suppose  I  did  n't  know  you 
135 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

were  sailing  on  Tuesday?  There  is  a  letter  for 
you  there,  in  my  desk  drawer.  It  was  to  have 
reached  you  on  the  steamer.  I  was  all  the 
morning  writing  it.  I  told  myself  that  if  I 
were  really  thinking  of  you,  and  not  of  myself, 
a  letter  would  be  better  than  nothing.  Marks 
on  paper  mean  something  to  you."  He  paused. 
"They  never  did  to  me." 

Hilda  smiled  up  at  him  beautifully  and  put 
her  hand  on  his  sleeve.  "Oh,  Bartley!  Did 
you  write  to  me?  Why  did  n't  you  telephone 
me  to  let  me  know  that  you  had?  Then  I 
would  n't  have  come." 

Alexander  slipped  his  arm  about  her.  "I 
did  n't  know  it  before,  Hilda,  on  my  honor  I 
did  n't,  but  I  believe  it  was  because,  deep  down 
in  me  somewhere,  I  was  hoping  I  might  drive 
you  to  do  just  this.  I've  watched  that  door  all 
day.  I've  jumped  up  if  the  fire  crackled.  I 
think  I  have  felt  that  you  were  coming." 
He  bent  his  face  over  her  hair. 
136 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"And  I,"  she  whispered,  —  "I  felt  that  you 
were  feeling  that.  But  when  I  came,  I  thought 
I  had  been  mistaken." 

Alexander  started  up  and  began  to  walk  up 
and  down  the  room. 

"No,  you  weren't  mistaken.  I've  been  up 
in  Canada  with  my  bridge,  and  I  arranged  not 
to  come  to  New  York  until  after  you  had  gone. 
Then,  when  your  manager  added  two  more 
weeks,  I  was  already  committed."  He  dropped 
upon  the  stool  in  front  of  her  and  sat  with  his 
hands  hanging  between  his  knees.  "What 
am  I  to  do,  Hilda?" 

"That's  what  I  wanted  to  see  you  about, 
Bartley.  I'm  going  to  do  what  you  asked 
me  to  do,  when  you  were  in  London.  Only 
I'll  do  it  more  completely.  I'm  going  to 
marry." 

"Who?" 

"Oh,  it  does  n't  matter  much!  One  of  them. 
Only  not  Mac.  I  'm  too  fond  of  him." 
137 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Alexander  moved  restlessly.  "Are  you  jok- 
ing, Hilda?" 

"Indeed  I'm  not." 

"Then  you  don't  know  what  you're  talking 
about." 

"Yes,  I  know  very  well.  I've  thought  about 
it  a  great  deal,  and  I  've  quite  decided.  I  never 
used  to  understand  how  women  did  things  like 
that,  but  I  know  now.  It 's  because  they  can't 
be  at  the  mercy  of  the  man  they  love  any 
longer." 

Alexander  flushed  angrily.  "So  it's  better 
to  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  man  you  don't  love?" 

"Under  such  circumstances,  infinitely!" 

There  was  a  flash  in  her  eyes  that  made 
Alexander's  fall.  He  got  up  and  went  over  to- 
the  window,  threw  it  open,  and  leaned  out. 
He  heard  Hilda  moving  about  behind  him. 
When  he  looked  over  his  shoulder  she  was 
lacing  her  boots.  He  went  back  and  stood 
over  her. 

138 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

"Hilda,  you'd  better  think  a  while  longer 
before  you  do  that.  I  don't  know  what  I  ought 
to  say,  but  I  don't  believe  you'd  be  happy; 
truly  I  don't.  Are  n't  you  trying  to  frighten 
me?" 

She  tied  the  knot  of  the  last  lacing  and  put 
her  boot-heel  down  firmly.  "No;  I'm  telling 
you  what  I've  made  up  my  mind  to  do.  I 
suppose  I  would  better  do  it  without  telling 
you.  But  afterward  I  shan't  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  explain,  for  I  shan't  be  seeing  you 
again." 

Alexander  started  to  speak,  but  caught 
himself.  When  Hilda  rose  he  sat  down  on  the 
arm  of  her  chair  and  drew  her  back  into  it. 

"I  would  n't  be  so  much  alarmed  if  I  did  n't 
know  how  utterly  reckless  you  can  be.  Don't 
do  anything  like  that  rashly."  His  face  grew 
troubled.  "You  wouldn't  be  happy.  You 
are  not  that  kind  of  woman.  I'd  never  have 
another  hour's  peace  if  I  helped  to  make  you 
139 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

do  a  thing  like  that."  He  took  her  face  between 
his  hands  and  looked  down  into  it.  "You 
see,  you  are  different,  Hilda.  Don't  you  know 
you  are?"  His  voice  grew  softer,  his  touch 
more  and  more  tender.  "Some  women  can  do 
that  sort  of  thing,  but  you  —  you  can  love  as 
queens  did,  in  the  old  time." 

Hilda  had  heard  that  soft,  deep  tone  in  his 
voice  only  once  before.  She  closed  her  eyes; 
her  lips  and  eyelids  trembled.  "  Only  one,  Bart- 
ley.  Only  one.  And  he  threw  it  back  at  me 
a  second  time." 

She  felt  the  strength  leap  in  the  arms  that 
held  her  so  lightly. 

"Try  him  again,  Hilda.  Try  him  once 
again." 

She  looked  up  into  his  eyes,  and  hid  her  face 
in  her  hands. 


CHAPTER 
X 

ON  Tuesday  afternoon  a  Boston  lawyer,  who 
had  been  trying  a  case  in  Vermont,  was  stand- 
ing on  the  siding  at  White  River  Junction  when 
the  Canadian  Express  pulled  by  on  its  north- 
ward journey.  As  the  day-coaches  at  the  rear 
end  of  the  long  train  swept  by  him,  the  lawyer 
noticed  at  one  of  the  windows  a  man's  head, 
with  thick  rumpled  hair.  "Curious,"  he 
thought;  "that  looked  like  Alexander,  but 
what  would  he  be  doing  back  there  in  the  day- 
coaches?" 

It  was,  indeed,  Alexander. 

That  morning  a  telegram  from  Moorlock 
had  reached  him,  telling  him  that  there  was 
serious  trouble  with  the  bridge  and  that  he  was 
needed  there  at  once*  so  he  had  caught  the  first 
train  out  of  New  York.  He  had  taken  a  seat 
141 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

in  a  day-coach  to  avoid  the  risk  of  meeting  any 
one  he  knew,  and  because  he  did  not  wish  to 
be  comfortable.  When  the  telegram  arrived, 
Alexander  was  at  his  rooms  on  Tenth  Street, 
packing  his  bag  to  go  to  Boston.  On  Monday 
night  he  had  written  a  long  letter  to  his  wife, 
but  when  morning  came  he  was  afraid  to  send 
it,  and  the  letter  was  still  in  his  pocket.  Wini- 
fred was  not  a  woman  who  could  bear  disap- 
pointment. She  demanded  a  great  deal  of  her- 
self and  of  the  people  she  loved;  and  she  never 
failed  herself.  If  he  told  her  now,  he  knew, 
it  would  be  irretrievable.  There  would  be  no 
going  back.  He  would  lose  the  thing  he  valued 
most  in  the  world;  he  would  be  destroying 
himself  and  his  own  happiness.  There  would 
be  nothing  for  him  afterward.  He  seemed  to 
see  himself  dragging  out  a  restless  existence 
on  the  Continent  —  Cannes,  Hyeres,  Algiers, 
Cairo  —  among  smartly  dressed,  disabled  men 
of  every  nationality;  forever  going  on  journeys 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

that  led  nowhere;  hurrying  to  catch  trains  that 
he  might  just  as  well  miss;  getting  up  in  the 
morning  with  a  great  bustle  and  splashing  of 
water,  to  begin  a  day  that  had  no  purpose  and 
no  meaning;  dining  late  to  shorten  the  night, 
sleeping  late  to  shorten  the  day. 

And  for  what?  For  a  mere  folly,  a  masquer- 
ade, a  little  thing  that  he  could  not  let  go.  And 
he  could  even  let  it  go,  he  told  himself.  But  he 
had  promised  to  be  in  London  at  midsummer, 
and  he  knew  that  he  would  go.  ...  It  was 
impossible  to  live  like  this  any  longer. 

And  this,  then,  was  to  be  the  disaster  that 
his  old  professor  had  foreseen  for  him:  the 
crack  in  the  wall,  the  crash,  the  cloud  of  dust. 
And  he  could  not  understand  how  it  had  come 
about.  He  felt  that  he  himself  was  unchanged, 
that  he  was  still  there,  the  same  man  he  had 
been  five  years  ago,  and  that  he  was  sitting 
stupidly  by  and  letting  some  resolute  offshoot 
of  himself  spoil  his  life  for  him.  This  new  force 
143 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

was  not  he,  it  was  but  a  part  of  him.  He  would 
not  even  admit  that  it  was  stronger  than  he; 
but  it  was  more  active.  It  was  by  its  energy 
that  this  new  feeling  got  the  better  of  him.  His 
wife  was  the  woman  who  had  made  his  life, 
gratified  his  pride,  given  direction  to  his  tastes 
and  habits.  The  life  they  led  together  seemed 
to  him  beautiful.  Winifred  still  was,  as  she  had 
always  been,  Romance  for  him,  and  whenever 
he  was  deeply  stirred  he  turned  to  her.  When 
the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  world  challenged 
him  —  as  it  challenges  even  the  most  self-ab- 
sorbed people  —  he  always  answered  with 
her  name.  That  was  his  reply  to  the  question 
put  by  the  mountains  and  the  stars;  to  all  the 
spiritual  aspects  of  life.  In  his  feeling  for  his  . 
wife  there  was  all  the  tenderness,  all  the  pride, 
all  the  devotion  of  which  he  was  capable.  There 
was  everything  but  energy;  the  energy  of  youth 
which  must  register  itself  and  cut  its  name  be- 
fore it  passes.  This  new  feeling  was  so  fresh, 
144 


ALEXANDER'S  BRIDGE 

so  unsatisfied  and  light  of  foot.  It  ran  and  was 
not  wearied,  anticipated  him  everywhere.  It 
put  a  girdle  round  the  earth  while  he  was  going 
from  New  York  to  Moorlock.  At  this  moment, 
it  was  tingling  through  him,  exultant,  and  live 
as  quicksilver,  whispering,  "  In  July  you  will 
be  in  England." 

Already  he  dreaded  the  long,  empty  days  at 
sea,  the  monotonous  Irish  coast,  the  sluggish 
passage  up  the  Mersey,  the  flash  of  the  boat 
train  through  the  summer  country.  He  closed 
his  eyes  and  gave  himself  up  to  the  feeling  of 
rapid  motion  and  to  swift,  terrifying  thoughts. 
He  was  sitting  so,  his  face  shaded  by  his  hand, 
when  the  Boston  lawyer  saw  him  from  the 
siding  at  White  River  Junction. 

When  at  last  Alexander  roused  himself,  the 
afternoon  had  waned  to  sunset.  The  train  was 
passing  through  a  gray  country  and  the  sky 
overhead  was  flushed  with  a  wide  flood  of  clear 
color.  There  was  a  rose-colored  light  over  the 
145 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

gray  rocks  and  hills  and  meadows.  Off  to  the 
left,  under  the  approach  of  a  weather-stained 
wooden  bridge,,  a  group  of  boys  were  sitting 
around  a  little  fire.  The  smell  of  the  wood 
smoke  blew  in  at  the  window.  Except  for  an 
old  farmer,  jogging  along  the  highroad  in  his 
box-wagon,  there  was  not  another  living  crea- 
ture to  be  seen.  Alexander  looked  back  wist- 
fully at  the  boys,  camped  on  the  edge  of  a  little 
marsh,  crouching  under  their  shelter  and  look- 
ing gravely  at  their  fire.  They  took  his  mind 
back  a  long  way,  to  a  campfire  on  a  sandbar  in 
a  Western  river,  and  he  wished  he  could  go 
back  and  sit  down  with  them.  He  could  re- 
member exactly  how  the  world  had  looked  then. 
It  was  quite  dark  and  Alexander  was  still 
thinking  of  the  boys,  when  it  occurred  to  him 
that  the  train  must  be  nearing  Allway.  In 
going  to  his  new  bridge  at  Moorlock  he  had 
always  to  pass  through  Allway.  The  train 
stopped  at  Allway  Mills,  then  wound  two  miles 
146 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

up  the  river,  and  then  the  hollow  sound  under 
his  feet  told  Bartley  that  he  was  on  his  first 
bridge  again.  The  bridge  seemed  longer  than 
it  had  ever  seemed  before,  and  he  was  glad 
when  he  felt  the  beat  of  the  wheels  on  the  solid 
roadbed  again.  He  did  not  like  coming  and 
going  across  that  bridge,  or  remembering  the 
man  who  built  it.  And  was  he,  indeed,  the 
same  man  who  used  to  walk  that  bridge  at 
night,  promising  such  things  to  himself  and  to 
the  stars?  And  yet,  he  could  remember  it  all 
so  well:  the  quiet  hills  sleeping  in  the  moon- 
light, the  slender  skeleton  of  the  bridge  reach- 
ing out  into  the  river,  and  up  yonder,  alone  on 
the  hill,  the  big  white  house;  upstairs,  in  Wini- 
fred's window,  the  light  that  told  him  she  was 
still  awake  and  still  thinking  of  him.  And  after 
the  light  went  out  he  walked  alone,  taking  the 
heavens  into  his  confidence,  unable  to  tear  him- 
self away  from  the  white  magic  of  the  night, 
unwilling  to  sleep  because  longing  was  so  sweet 
147 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

to  him,  and  because,  for  the  first  time  since 
first  the  hills  were  hung  with  moonlight,  there 
was  a  lover  in  the  world.  And  always  there  was 
the  sound  of  the  rushing  water  underneath, 
the  sound  which,  more  than  anything  else, 
meant  death;  the  wearing  away  of  things  under 
the  impact  of  physical  forces  which  men  could 
direct  but  never  circumvent  or  diminish.  Then, 
in  the  exaltation  of  love,  more  than  ever  it 
seemed  to  him  to  mean  death,  the  only  other 
thing  as  strong  as  love.  Under  the  moon,  under 
the  cold,  splendid  stars,  there  were  only  those 
two  things  awake  and  sleepless;  death  and 
love,  the  rushing  river  and  his  burning  heart. 
Alexander  sat  up  and  looked  about  him. 
The  train  was  tearing  on  through  the  dark-  . 
ness.  All  his  companions  in  the  day-coach  were 
either  dozing  or  sleeping  heavily,  and  the 
murky  lamps  were  turned  low.  How  came  he 
here  among  all  these  dirty  people?  Why  was 
he  going  to  London?  What  did  it  mean  — 
148 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

what  was  the  answer?  How  could  this  happen 
to  a  man  who  had  lived  through  that  magical 
spring  and  summer,  and  who  had  felt  that  the 
stars  themselves  were  but  flaming  particles  in 
the  far-away  infinitudes  of  his  love? 

What  had  he  done  to  lose  it?  How  could  he 
endure  the  baseness  of  life  without  it?  And 
with  every  revolution  of  the  wheels  beneath 
him,  the  unquiet  quicksilver  in  his  breast  told 
him  that  at  midsummer  he  would  be  in  London. 
He  remembered  his  last  night  there:  the  red 
foggy  darkness,  the  hungry  crowds  before  the 
theatres,  the  hand-organs,  the  feverish  rhythm 
of  the  blurred,  crowded  streets,  and  the  feel- 
ing of  letting  himself  go  with  the  crowd.  He 
shuddered  and  looked  about  him  at  the  poor 
unconscious  companions  of  his  journey,  un- 
kempt and  travel-stained,  now  doubled  in  un- 
lovely attitudes,  who  had  come  to  stand  to 
him  for  the  ugliness  he  had  brought  into  the 
world. 

149 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

And  those  boys  back  there,  beginning  it  all 
just  as  he  had  begun  it;  he  wished  he  could 
promise  them  better  luck.  Ah,  if  one  could 
promise  any  one  better  luck,  if  one  could  as- 
sure a  single  human  being  of  happiness!  He 
had  thought  he  could  do  so,  once;  and  it 
was  thinking  of  that  that  he  at  last  fell 
asleep.  In  his  sleep,  as  if  it  had  nothing  fresher 
to  work  upon,  his  mind  went  back  and  tor- 
tured itself  with  something  years  and  years 
away,  an  old,  long-forgotten  sorrow  of  his 
childhood. 

When  Alexander  awoke  in  the  morning,  the 
sun  was  just  rising  through  pale  golden  ripples 
of  cloud,  and  the  fresh  yellow  light  was  vibrat- 
ing through  the  pine  woods.  The  white  birches, 
with  their  little  unfolding  leaves,  gleamed  in 
the  lowlands,  and  the  marsh  meadows  were 
already  coming  to'  life  with  their  first  green, 
a  thin,  bright  color  which  had  run  over  them 
like  fire.  As  the  train  rushed  along  the  trestles, 
150 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

thousands  of  wild  birds  rose  screaming  into 
the  light.  The  sky  was  already  a  pale  blue  and 
of  the  clearness  of  crystal.  Bartley  caught  up 
his  bag  and  hurried  through  the  Pullman 
coaches  until  he  found  the  conductor.  There 
was  a  stateroom  unoccupied,  and  he  took  it 
and  set  about  changing  his  clothes.  Last  night 
he  would  not  have  believed  that  anything  could 
be  so  pleasant  as  the  cold  water  he  dashed  over 
his  head  and  shoulders  and  the  freshness  of 
clean  linen  on  his  body. 

After  he  had  dressed,  Alexander  sat  down  at 
the  window  and  drew  into  his  lungs  deep 
breaths  of  the  pine-scented  air.  He  had  awak- 
ened with  all  his  old  sense  of  power.  He  could 
not  believe  that  things  were  as  bad  with  him 
as  they  had  seemed  last  night,  that  there  was 
no  way  to  set  them  entirely  right.  Even  if  he 
went  to  London  at  midsummer,  what  would 
that  mean  except  that  he  was  a  fool?  And  he 
had  been  a  fool  before.  That  was  not  the  reality 
151 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

of  his  life.  Yet  he  knew  that  he  would  go  to 
London. 

Hah*  an  hour  later  the  train  stopped  at  Moor- 
lock.  Alexander  sprang  to  the  platform  and 
hurried  up  the  siding,  waving  to  Philip  Horton, 
one  of  his  assistants,  who  was  anxiously  looking 
up  at  the  windows  of  the  coaches.  Bartley  took 
his  arm  and  they  went  together  into  the  station 
buffet. 

"I'll  have  my  coffee  first,  Philip.  Have  you 
had  yours?  And  now,  what  seems  to  be  the 
matter  up  here?  " 

The  young  man,  in  a  hurried,  nervous  way, 
began  his  explanation. 

But  Alexander  cut  him  short.  "When  did 
you  stop  work?"  he  asked  sharply. 

The  young  engineer  looked  confused.  "I 
haven't  stopped  work  yet,  Mr.  Alexander. 
I  did  n't  feel  that  I  could  go  so  far  without 
definite  authorization  from  you." 

"Then  why  did  n't  you  say  in  your  telegram 
152 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

exactly  what  you  thought,  and  ask  for  your  au- 
thorization? You'd  have  got  it  quick  enough." 

"Well,  really,  Mr.  Alexander,  I  could  n't  be 
absolutely  sure,  you  know,  and  I  did  n't  like 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  making  it  public." 

Alexander  pushed  back  his  chair  and  rose. 
"Anything  I  do  can  be  made  public,  Phil. 
You  say  that  you  believe  the  lower  chords  are 
showing  strain,  and  that  even  the  workmen 
have  been  talking  about  it,  and  yet  you've 
gone  on  adding  weight." 

"  I  'm  sorry,  Mr.  Alexander,  but  I  had  counted 
on  your  getting  here  yesterday.  My  first  tele- 
gram missed  you  somehow.  I  sent  one  Sunday 
evening,  to  the  same  address,  but  it  was  re- 
turned to  me." 

"Have  you  a  carriage  out  there?  I  must 
stop  to  send  a  wire." 

Alexander  went  up  to  the  telegraph-desk 
and  penciled  the  following  message  to  his 
wife: — 

153 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

I  may  have  to  be  here  for  some  time.  Can 
you  come  up  at  once?  Urgent. 

HARTLEY. 

The  Moorlock  Bridge  lay  three  miles  above 
the  town.  When  they  were  seated  in  the  car- 
riage, Alexander  began  to  question  his  assistant 
further.  If  it  were  true  that  the  compression 
members  showed  strain,  with  the  bridge  only 
two  thirds  done,  then  there  was  nothing  to  do 
but  pull  the  whole  structure  down  and  begin 
over  again.  Horton  kept  repeating  that  he 
was  sure  there  could  be  nothing  wrong  with  the 
estimates. 

Alexander  grew  impatient.  "That's  all  true, 
Phil,  but  we  never  were  justified  in  assuming 
that  a  scale  that  was  perfectly  safe  for  an 
ordinary  bridge  would  work  with  anything  of 
such  length.  It's  all  very  well  on  paper,  but 
it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  it  can  be  done 
in  practice.  I  should  have  thrown  up  the  job 
154 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

when  they  crowded  me.  It's  all  nonsense  to 
try  to  do  what  other  engineers  are  doing  when 
you  know  they're  not  sound." 

"But  just  now,  when  there  is  such  competi- 
tion," the  younger  man  demurred.  "And  cer- 
tainly that's  the  new  line  of  development." 

Alexander  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  made 
no  reply. 

When  they  reached  the  bridge  works,  Alex- 
ander began  his  examination  immediately.  An 
hour  later  he  sent  for  the  superintendent.  "I 
think  you  had  better  stop  work  out  there  at 
once,  Dan.  I  should  say  that  the  lower  chord 
here  might  buckle  at  any  moment.  I  told  the 
Commission  that  we  were  using  higher  unit 
stresses  than  any  practice  has  established,  and 
we've  put  the  dead  load  at  a  low  estimate. 
Theoretically  it  worked  out  well  enough,  but 
it  had  never  actually  been  tried."  Alexander 
put  on  his  overcoat  and  took  the  superintend- 
ent by  the  arm.  "Don't  look  so  chopfallen, 
155 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Dan.  It's  a  jolt,  but  we've  got  to  face  it.  It 
is  n't  the  end  of  the  world,  you  know.  Now 
we  '11  go  out  and  call  the  men  off  quietly. 
They're  already  nervous,  Horton  tells  me, 
and  there's  no  use  alarming  them.  I'll  go 
with  you,  and  we'll  send  the  end  riveters  in 
first." 

Alexander  and  the  superintendent  picked 
their  way  out  slowly  over  the  long  span.  They 
went  deliberately,  stopping  to  see  what  each 
gang  was  doing,  as  if  they  were  on  an  ordinary 
round  of  inspection.  When  they  reached  the 
end  of  the  river  span,  Alexander  nodded  to  the 
superintendent,  who  quietly  gave  an  order  to 
the  foreman.  The  men  in  the  end  gang  picked 
up  their  tools  and,  glancing  curiously  at  each 
other,  started  back  across  the  bridge  toward 
the  river-bank.  Alexander  himself  remained 
standing  where  they  had  been  working,  looking 
about  him.  It  was  hard  to  believe,  as  he  looked 
back  over  it,  that  the  whole  great  span  was 
156 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

incurably  disabled,  was  already  as  good  as 
condemned,  because  something  was  out  of  line 
in  the  lower  chord  of  the  cantilever  arm. 

The  end  riveters  had  reached  the  bank  and 
were  dispersing  among  the  tool-houses,  and  the 
second  gang  had  picked  up  their  tools  and  were 
starting  toward  the  shore.  Alexander,  still 
standing  at  the  end  of  the  river  span,  saw  the 
lower  chord  of  the  cantilever  arm  give  a  little, 
like  an  elbow  bending.  He  shouted  and  ran 
after  the  second  gang,  but  by  this  time  every 
one  knew  that  the  big  river  span  was  slowly 
settling.  There  was  a  burst  of  shouting  that 
was  immediately  drowned  by  the  scream  and 
cracking  of  tearing  iron,  as  all  the  tension  work 
began  to  pull  asunder.  Once  the  chords  began 
to  buckle,  there  were  thousands  of  tons  of  iron- 
work, all  riveted  together  and  lying  in  midair 
without  support.  It  tore  itself  to  pieces  with 
roaring  and  grinding  and  noises  that  were  like 
the  shrieks  of  a  steam  whistle.  There  was  no 
157 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

shock  of  any  kind;  the  bridge  had  no  impetus 
except  from  its  own  weight.  It  lurched  neither 
to  right  nor  left,  but  sank  almost  in  a  vertical 
line,  snapping  and  breaking  and  tearing  as  it 
went,  because  no  integral  part  could  bear  for 
an  instant  the  enormous  strain  loosed  upon  it. 
Some  of  the  men  jumped  and  some  ran,  trying 
to  make  the  shore. 

At  the  first  shriek  of  the  tearing  iron,  Alex- 
ander jumped  from  the  downstream  side  of 
the  bridge.  He  struck  the  water  without  injury 
and  disappeared.  He  was  under  the  river  a 
long  time  and  had  great  difficulty  in  holding 
his  breath.  When  it  seemed  impossible,  and  his 
chest  was  about  to  heave,  he  thought  he  heard 
his  wife  telling  him  that  he  could  hold  out  a 
little  longer.  An  instant  later  his  face  cleared 
the  water.  For  a  moment,  in  the  depths  of 
the  river,  he  had  realized  what  it  would  mean 
to  die  a  hypocrite,  and  to  lie  dead  under  the 
last  abandonment  of  her  tenderness.  But  once 
158 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

in  the  light  and  air,  he  knew  he  should  live  to 
tell  her  and  to  recover  all  he  had  lost.  Now,  at 
last,  he  felt  sure  of  himself.  He  was  not  startled. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  been  through 
something  of  this  sort  before.  There  was 
nothing  horrible  about  it.  This,  too,  was  life, 
and  life  was  activity,  just  as  it  was  in  Boston 
or  in  London.  He  was  himself,  and  there  was 
something  to  be  done;  everything  seemed  per- 
fectly natural.  Alexander  was  a  strong  swim- 
mer, but  he  had  gone  scarcely  a  dozen  strokes 
when  the  bridge  itself,  which  had  been  settling 
faster  and  faster,  crashed  into  the  water  behind 
him.  Immediately  the  river  was  full  of  drown- 
ing men.  A  gang  of  French  Canadians  fell 
almost  on  top  of  him.  He  thought  he  had 
cleared  them,  when  they  began  coming  up  all 
around  him,  clutching  at  him  and  at  each  other. 
Some  of  them  could  swim,  but  they  were  either 
hurt  or  crazed  with  fright.  Alexander  tried  to 
beat  them  off,  but  there  were  too  many  of 
159 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

them.  One  caught  him  about  the  neck,  another 
gripped  him  about  the  middle,  and  they  went 
down  together.  When  he  sank,  his  wife  seemed 
to  be  there  in  the  water  beside  him,  telling  him 
to  keep  his  head,  that  if  he  could  hold  out  the 
men  would  drown  and  release  him.  There  was 
something  he  wanted  to  tell  his  wife,  but  he 
could  not  think  clearly  for  the  roaring  in  his 
ears.  Suddenly  he  remembered  what  it  was. 
He  caught  his  breath,  and  then  she  let  him 
go. 

The  work  of  recovering  the  dead  went  on 
all  day  and  all  the  following  night.  By  the  next 
morning  forty-eight  bodies  had  been  taken  out 
of  the  river,  but  there  were  still  twenty  missing. 
Many  of  the  men  had  fallen  with  the  bridge 
and  were  held  down  under  the  debris.  Early 
on  the  morning  of  the  second  day  a  closed  car- 
riage was  driven  slowly  along  the  river-bank 
and  stopped  a  little  below  the  works,  where  the 
160 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

river  boiled  and  churned  about  the  great  iron 
carcass  which  lay  in  a  straight  line  two  thirds 
across  it.  The  carriage  stood  there  hour  after 
hour,  and  word  soon  spread  among  the  crowds 
on  the  shore  that  its  occupant  was  the  wife  of 
the  Chief  Engineer;  his  body  had  not  yet  been 
found.  The  widows  of  the  lost  workmen,  mov- 
ing up  and  down  the  bank  with  shawls  over  their 
heads,  some  of  them  carrying  babies,  looked  at 
the  rusty  hired  hack  many  times  that  morning. 
They  drew  near  it  and  walked  about  it,  but 
none  of  them  ventured  to  peer  within.  Even 
half -indifferent  sight-seers  dropped  their  voices 
as  they  told  a  newcomer:  "You  see  that  car- 
riage over  there?  That's  Mrs.  Alexander.  They 
have  n't  found  him  yet.  She  got  off  the  train 
this  morning.  Horton  met  her.  She  heard  it 
in  Boston  yesterday  —  heard  the  newsboys 
crying  it  in  the  street." 

At  noon  Philip  Horton  made  his  way  through 
the  crowd  with  a  tray  and  a  tin  coffee-pot  from 
161 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

the  camp  kitchen.  When  he  reached  the  car- 
riage he  found  Mrs.  Alexander  just  as  he  had 
left  her  in  the  early  morning,  leaning  forward 
a  little,  with  her  hand  on  the  lowered  window, 
looking  at  the  river.  Hour  after  hour  she  had 
been  watching  the  water,  the  lonely,  useless 
stone  towers,  and  the  convulsed  mass  of  iron 
wreckage  over  which  the  angry  river  contin- 
ually spat  up  its  yellow  foam. 

"Those  poor  women  out  there,  do  they  blame 
him  very  much?"  she  asked,  as  she  handed  the 
coffee-cup  back  to  Horton. 

"Nobody  blames  him,  Mrs.  Alexander.  If 
any  one  is  to  blame,  I  'm  afraid  it 's  I.  I  should 
have  stopped  work  before  he  came.  He  said 
so  as  soon  as  I  met  him.  I  tried  to  get  him  here 
a  day  earlier,  but  my  telegram  missed  him, 
somehow.  He  did  n't  have  time  really  to  ex- 
plain to  me.  If  he'd  got  here  Monday,  he'd 
have  had  all  the  men  off  at  once.  But,  you  see, 
Mrs.  Alexander,  such  a  thing  never  happened 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

before.    According  to  all  human  calculations, 
it  simply  could  n't  happen." 

Horton  leaned  wearily  against  the  front 
wheel  of  the  cab.  He  had  not  had  his  clothes 
off  for  thirty  hours,  and  the  stimulus  of  violent 
excitement  was  beginning  to  wear  off. 

"Don't  be  afraid  to  tell  me  the  worst,  Mr. 
Horton.  Don't  leave  me  to  the  dread  of  finding 
out  things  that  people  may  be  saying.  If  he  is 
blamed,  if  he  needs  any  one  to  speak  for  him," 
—  for  the  first  time  her  voice  broke  and  a  flush 
of  life,  tearful,  painful,  and  confused,  swept 
over  her  rigid  pallor,  —  "if  he  needs  any  one, 
tell  me,  show  me  what  to  do."  She  began  to 
sob,  and  Horton  hurried  away. 

When  he  came  back  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  he  was  carrying  his  hat  in  his  hand, 
and  Winifred  knew  as  soon  as  she  saw  him  that 
they  had  found  Bartley.  She  opened  the  car- 
riage door  before  he  reached  her  and  stepped  to 
the  ground. 

163 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Horton  put  out  his  hand  as  if  to  hold  her 
back  and  spoke  pleadingly:  "Won't  you  drive 
up  to  my  house,  Mrs.  Alexander?  They  will 
take  him  up  there." 

"Take  me  to  him  now,  please.  I  shall  not 
make  any  trouble." 

The  group  of  men  down  under  the  river-bank 
fell  back  when  they  saw  a  woman  coming,  and 
one  of  them  threw  a  tarpaulin  over  the 
stretcher.  They  took  off  their  hats  and  caps 
as  Winifred  approached,  and  although  she  had 
pulled  her  veil  down  over  her  face  they  did  not 
look  up  at  her.  She  was  taller  than  Horton, 
and  some  of  the  men  thought  she  was  the  tall- 
est woman  they  had  ever  seen.  "As  tall  as 
himself,"  some  one  whispered.  Horton  mo- 
tioned to  the  men,  and  six  of  them  lifted  the 
stretcher  and  began  to  carry  it  up  the  embank- 
ment. Winifred  followed  them  the  half-mile 
to  Horton's  house.  She  walked  quietly,  with- 
out once  breaking  or  stumbling.  When  the 
164 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

bearers  put  the  stretcher  down  in  Horton's 
spare  bedroom,  she  thanked  them  and  gave 
her  hand  to  each  in  turn.  The  men  went 
out  of  the  house  and  through  the  yard  with 
their  caps  in  their  hands.  They  were  too  much 
confused  to  say  anything  as  they  went  down 
the  hill. 

Horton  himself  was  almost  as  deeply  per- 
plexed. "Mamie,"  he  said  to  his  wife,  when  he 
came  out  of  the  spare  room  half  an  hour  later, 
"will  you  take  Mrs.  Alexander  the  things  she 
needs?  She  is  going  to  do  everything  herself. 
Just  stay  about  where  you  can  hear  her  and 
go  in  if  she  wants  you." 

Everything  happened  as  Alexander  had  fore- 
seen in  that  moment  of  prescience  under  the 
river.  With  her  own  hands  she  washed  him 
clean  of  every  mark  of  disaster.  All  night  he 
was  alone  with  her  in  the  still  house,  his  great 
head  lying  deep  in  the  pillow.  In  the  pocket 
of  his  coat  Winifred  found  the  letter  that  he 
165 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

had  written  her  the  night  before  he  left  New 
York,  water-soaked  and  illegible,  but  because 
of  its  length,  she  knew  it  had  been  meant  for 
her. 

For  Alexander  death  was  an  easy  creditor. 
Fortune,  which  had  smiled  upon  him  consis- 
tently all  his  life,  did  not  desert  him  in  the 
end.  His  harshest  critics  did  not  doubt  that, 
had  he  lived,  he  would  have  retrieved  himself. 
Even  Lucius  Wilson  did  not  see  in  this  accident 
the  disaster  he  had  once  foretold. 

When  a  great  man  dies  in  his  prime  there  is 
no  surgeon  who  can  say  whether  he  did  well; 
whether  or  not  the  future  was  his,  as  it  seemed 
to  be.  The  mind  that  society  had  come  to 
regard  as  a  powerful  and  reliable  machine, 
dedicated  to  its  service,  may  for  a  long  time 
have  been  sick  within  itself  and  bent  upon  its 
own  destruction. 


EPILOGUE 

PROFESSOR  WILSON  had  been  living  in  London 
for  six  years  and  he  was  just  back  from  a  visit 
to  America.  One  afternoon,  soon  after  his  re- 
turn, he  put  on  his  frock-coat  and  drove  in  a 
hansom  to  pay  a  call  upon  Hilda  Burgoyne, 
who  still  lived  at  her  old  number,  off  Bedford 
Square.  He  and  Miss  Burgoyne  had  been  fast 
friends  for  a  long  time.  He  had  first  noticed 
her  about  the  corridors  of  the  British  Museum, 
where  he  read  constantly.  Her  being  there  so 
often  had  made  him  feel  that  he  would  like  to 
know  her,  and  as  she  was  not  an  inaccessible 
person,  an  introduction  was  not  difficult.  The 
preliminaries  once  over,  they  came  to  depend 
a  great  deal  upon  each  other,  and  Wilson, 
after  his  day's  reading,  often  went  round  to 
Bedford  Square  for  his  tea.  They  had  much 
more  in  common  than  their  memories  of  a  com- 
167 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

mon  friend.  Indeed,  they  seldom  spoke  of  him. 
They  saved  that  for  the  deep  moments  which 
do  not  come  often,  and  then  their  talk  of  him 
was  mostly  silence.  Wilson  knew  that  Hilda 
had  loved  him;  more  than  this  he  had  not 
tried  to  know. 

It  was  late  when  Wilson  reached  Hilda's 
apartment  on  this  particular  December  after- 
noon, and  he  found  her  alone.  She  sent  for 
fresh  tea  and  made  him  comfortable,  as  she 
had  such  a  knack  of  making  people  comfort- 
able. 

"How  good  you  were  to  come  back  before 
Christmas !  I  quite  dreaded  the  Holidays  with- 
out you.  You  Ve  helped  me  over  a  good  many 
Christmases."  She  smiled  at  him  gayly. 

"As  if  you  needed  me  for  that!  But,  at  any 
rate,  I  needed  you.  How  well  you  are  looking, 
my  dear,  and  how  rested." 

He  peered  up  at  her  from  his  low  chair, 
balancing  the  tips  of  his  long  fingers  together 
168 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

in  a  judicial  manner  which  had  grown  on  him 
with  years. 

Hilda  laughed  as  she  carefully  poured  his 
cream.  "That  means  that  I  was  looking  very 
seedy  at  the  end  of  the  season,  does  n't  it  ? 
Well,  we  must  show  wear  at  last,  you  know." 

Wilson  took  the  cup  gratefully.  "Ah,  no 
need  to  remind  a  man  of  seventy,  who  has  just 
been  home  to  find  that  he  has  survived  all  his 
contemporaries.  I  was  most  gently  treated  — 
as  a  sort  of  precious  relic.  But,  do  you  know, 
it  made  me  feel  awkward  to  be  hanging  about 
still." 

"Seventy?  Never  mention  it  to  me."  Hilda 
looked  appreciatively  at  the  Professor's  alert 
face,  with  so  many  kindly  lines  about  the 
mouth  and  so  many  quizzical  ones  about  the 
eyes.  "You've  got  to  hang  about  for  me,  you 
know.  I  can't  even  let  you  go  home  again. 
You  must  stay  put,  now  that  I  have  you  back. 
You're  the  realest  thing  I  have." 
169 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Wilson  chuckled.  "Dear  me,  am  I?  Out 
of  so  many  conquests  and  the  spoils  of  con- 
quered cities !  You've  really  missed  me?  Well, 
then,  I  shall  hang.  Even  if  you  have  at  last 
to  put  me  in  the  mummy-room  with  the  others. 
You'll  visit  me  often,  won't  you  ?  " 

"Every  day  in  the  calendar.  Here,  your 
cigarettes  are  in  this  drawer,  where  you  left 
them."  She  struck  a  match  and  lit  one  for  him. 
"But  you  did,  after  all,  enjoy  being  at  home 
again?  " 

"Oh,  yes.  I  found  the  long  railway  journeys 
trying.  People  live  a  thousand  miles  apart. 
But  I  did  it  thoroughly;  I  was  all  over  the  place. 
It  was  in  Boston  I  lingered  longest." 

"Ah,  you  saw  Mrs.  Alexander?" 

"Often.  I  dined  with  her,  and  had  tea  there 
a  dozen  different  times,  I  should  think.  Indeed, 
it  was  to  see  her  that  I  lingered  on  and  on.  I 
found  that  I  still  loved  to  go  to  the  house.  It 
always  seemed  as  if  Bartley  were  there,  some- 
170 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

how,  and  that  at  any  moment  one  might  hear 
his  heavy  tramp  on  the  stairs.  Do  you  know, 
I  kept  feeling  that  he  must  be  up  in  his  study." 
The  Professor  looked  reflectively  into  the  grate. 
"I  should  really  have  liked  to  go  up  there. 
That  was  where  I  had  my  last  long  talk  with 
him.  But  Mrs.  Alexander  never  suggested  it." 

"Why?" 

Wilson  was  a  little  startled  by  her  tone,  and 
he  turned  his  head  so  quickly  that  his  cuff- 
link caught  the  string  of  his  nose-glasses  and 
pulled  them  awry.  "Why?  Why,  dear  me,  I 
don't  know.  She  probably  never  thought  of 
it." 

Hilda  bit  her  lip.  "I  don't  know  what  made 
me  say  that.  I  did  n't  mean  to  interrupt.  Go 
on,  please,  and  tell  me  how  it  was." 

"Well,  it  was  like  that.  Almost  as  if  he  were 
there.  In  a  way,  he  really  is  there.  She  never 
lets  him  go.  It's  the  most  beautiful  and  digni- 
fied sorrow  I've  ever  known.  It's  so  beautiful 
171 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

that  it  has  its  compensations,  I  should  think. 
Its  very  completeness  is  a  compensation.  It 
gives  her  a  fixed  star  to  steer  by.  She  does  n't 
drift.  We  sat  there  evening  after  evening  in 
the  quiet  of  that  magically  haunted  room, 
and  watched  the  sunset  burn  on  the  river, 
and  felt  him.  Felt  him  with  a  difference,  of 
course." 

Hilda  leaned  forward,  her  elbow  on  her  knee, 
her  chin  on  her  hand.  "With  a  difference? 
Because  of  her,  you  mean?" 

Wilson's  brow  wrinkled.  "Something  like 
that,  yes.  Of  course,  as  time  goes  on,  to  her  he 
becomes  more  and  more  their  simple  personal 
relation." 

Hilda  studied  the  droop  of  the  Professor's 
head  intently.  "You  didn't  altogether  like 
that?  You  felt  it  was  n't  wholly  fair  to 
him?" 

Wilson  shook  himself  and  readjusted  his 
glasses.  "Oh,  fair  enough.  More  than  fair. 
172 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Of  course,  I  always  felt  that  my  image  of  him 
was  just  a  little  different  from  hers.  No  rela- 
tion is  so  complete  that  it  can  hold  absolutely 
all  of  a  person.  And  I  liked  him  just  as  he  was; 
his  deviations,  too;  the  places  where  he  did  n't 
square." 

Hilda  considered  vaguely.  "Has  she  grown 
much  older?"  she  asked  at  last. 

"Yes,  and  no.  In  a  tragic  way  she  is  even 
handsomer.  But  colder.  Cold  for  everything 
but  him.  *  Forget  thyself  to  marble';  I  kept 
thinking  of  that.  Her  happiness  was  a  happi- 
ness a  deux,  not  apart  from  the  world,  but  actu- 
ally against  it.  And  now  her  grief  is  like  that. 
She  saves  herself  for  it  and  does  n't  even  go 
through  the  form  of  seeing  people  much.  I'm 
sorry.  It  would  be  better  for  her,  and  might 
be  so  good  for  them,  if  she  could  let  other 
people  in." 

"Perhaps  she's  afraid  of  letting  him  out  a 
little,  of  sharing  him  with  somebody." 
173 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

Wilson  put  down  his  cup  and  looked  up  with 
vague  alarm.  "Dear  me,  it  takes  a  woman  to 
think  of  that,  now!  I  don't,  you  know,  think 
we  ought  to  be  hard  on  her.  More,  even,  than 
the  rest  of  us  she  did  n't  choose  her  destiny. 
She  underwent  it.  And  it  has  left  her  chilled. 
As  to  her  not  wishing  to  take  the  world  into 
her  confidence  —  well,  it  is  a  pretty  brutal 
and  stupid  world,  after  all,  you  know." 

Hilda  leaned  forward.  "Yes,  I  know,  I  know. 
Only  I  can't  help  being  glad  that  there  was 
something  for  him  even  in  stupid  and  vulgar 
people.  My  little  Marie  worshiped  him.  When 
she  is  dusting  I  always  know  when  she  has 
come  to  his  picture." 

Wilson  nodded.  "Oh,  yes!  He  left  an  echo. 
The  ripples  go  on  in  all  of  us.  He  belonged  to 
the  people  who  make  the  play,  and  most  of  us 
are  only  onlookers  at  the  best.  We  should  n't 
wonder  too  much  at  Mrs.  Alexander.  She  must 
feel  how  useless  it  would  be  to  stir  about,  that 
174 


ALEXANDER'S    BRIDGE 

she  may  as  well  sit  still;  that  nothing  can  hap- 
pen to  her  after  Bartley." 

"Yes,"  said  Hilda  softly,  "nothing  can  hap- 
pen to  one  after  Bartley." 

They  both  sat  looking  into  the  fire. 


THE  END 


(gtfce 

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THE  CORNER  OF 
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Being  some  familiar  correspondence  of 

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